Our Own HappilyEverAfter
by Aeryn Alexander
Summary: Auron, Tidus, and Jecht return to Spira ... about 18 years after the dream ended and Sin was destroyed. Everything has changed ... but evil still exists. And they have some help to fight it. How will the past shape the future? Chapter 26 is up!
1. Three who came from the sea

Disclaimer: Fan Fiction is for fun, not for profit.  
Title: Our Own Happily-Ever-After  
Author: Aeryn Alexander  
Summary: How much time is too long? How much danger is too great to be faced? Does time heal all wounds, or is it love? Heroes from the past and young warriors from the present face a new evil in Spira. But will they succeed?  
Rating: PG-13 (Some language, moderate violence, a few adult situations, and a bit of sacrilege to Yevon)  
Special warning: If you love the Guado, then you will never love me (or this story).  
Spoilers: Yes, definitely, for the whole game.  
Genre: Romance/ Supernatural/ Drama/ Comedy/ General  
Author's note: If some of these romantic pairings or this plot line has been done before, I sincerely apologize, but I haven't read everything out here. I wish I had the time. Please read and review. It makes the author happier. Thanks!  
  
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Our Own Happily-Ever-After  
  
By Aeryn Alexander  
  
  
Chapter One  
  
Three who came from the sea  
  
  
When Tidus broke the dazzling surface of the blue-green water, he was instantly aware that he was not alone. Jecht's loud guffaw rang in one ear, and a surprised gasp from Auron resounded in the other. Tidus glanced at them in turn before directing his gaze toward the beach in front of them. His eyes widened as he looked at Besaid, no longer a village, but by all signs a thriving town. A hand on his shoulder, Jecht's hand, brought him back from the memories of the tiny village of huts and tents to the reality before them.  
  
"I don't know how we got here, but I'd bet half my blitzball trophies that that's Besaid we're looking at." said Jecht.  
  
"And some time has passed, or I am much mistaken." stated Auron gruffly, striding through the shallow water with purposeful steps. "Come on." he ordered, glancing over his shoulder at the father and son blitzball players.  
  
"Right." agreed Tidus, following him with a slightly dazed expression on his face. "What if another thousand years have passed ...? Then she's gone." he thought, his heart hammering in his chest. "But if Yuna's dead ... then why didn't we run into her on the Farplane?" For an instant he felt a rush of hope and confident expectation. He felt certain that he would see Yuna again.  
  
As they approached the sandy shore, a trio of teenagers from the village, one with a regulation blitzball in hand, came dashing down the path that connected the small port with the village, though it had long been paved and otherwise improved. They stopped in their tracks when they saw Auron, Jecht, and Tidus at the shoreline.  
  
"Hi, guys!" called Tidus. Returning to Spira was strange and disconcerting enough without everyone staring at them. The kids almost looked at them as though they knew them.  
  
"You three ... Are you? I mean, you look like ... You guys aren't dead, ya?" questioned a trim strawberry blond girl of mixed Al-Bhed and Yevonite heritage, squinting her bright, silvery blue eyes at them.  
  
Jecht and Tidus looked at one another and laughed.  
  
"I don't know. What do you think, Auron? You've had the most practice. Are we dead or aren't we?" asked Jecht.  
  
Auron made a sound something like 'hmpf' before answering, "I don't feel dead any more. I think we are all alive here."  
  
"Are you really him? The Auron, legendary guardian to Braska and Yuna?" asked one of the other two teenagers, a very slight girl with light brown hair and crystalline blue eyes. She was the one carrying the blitzball, not to mention wearing the uniform of the Besaid Aurochs.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Then that would probably make you Sir Jecht and Sir Tidus." said the young man whose skin was sepia in hue and whose eyes were dark, though tinged with subtle hints of red, giving the strange impression of two burning coals.  
  
"Yeah." said Tidus quietly.  
  
"This is too weird." said the girl with the ball, shaking her head.  
  
"Maybe we should explain." suggested the boy, taking a deep breath. "My name is Tiron." he said. Pointing to the Al Bhed - Yevonite girl, he said, "This is Aurie." "And she's Tida. Star player of the Besaid Aurochs."  
  
"Tell us who your parents are." requested Auron in a low voice.  
  
Aurie grinned and said, "Sir Wakka and Lady Rikku."  
  
"Lady Lulu and Sir Maroda, formerly the elder guardian of Lord Isaaru." replied Tiron.  
  
Tida shuffled her feet and answered, "High Summoner Yuna is my mother."  
  
"What about your dad? Who's he?" questioned Tidus hastily.  
  
"I don't know his name, but on his death bed, Sir Kimahri Ronso told me that he was a guardian to my mother. I went alone, all the way to Mount Gagazet, to learn of his identity, but Kimahri left this life before he could reveal his name to me." answered Tida.  
  
Jecht rubbed his neck awkwardly and Auron turned his back toward them and gazed toward the sea. Tidus could only stand there in silence, recalling the lake in Macalania Forest where Yuna and he had ... Was it possible? Was this girl, Tida, the result of their only night together?  
  
"I always thought that perhaps it was the renowned Sir Tidus, who was only a dream of the Fayth, but ... Is that not idle fancy?"  
  
"I ... Well, you see, I ... Um, maybe I ..." said Tidus, stumbling over the words. "It is possible." he admitted, scrutinizing her face carefully.  
  
"Since you are here now ... perhaps the other guardians will be more forthcoming." commented Tida, looking at him with an intense, but questioning expression.  
  
"Speaking of the others. Where are they?" asked Auron as he turned, giving Tidus an unpleasant look, that said something like "Just you wait ..."  
  
"Lady Yuna has taken those guardians who remain - Wakka, Rikku, and my mother - to Bevelle. Sir Gatta of the Crusaders sent a messenger with urgent news just three days ago." Tiron informed them, obviously unfazed by the idea that Tidus was possibly his friend's missing parent.  
  
"What news?" questioned Auron.  
  
Tiron shrugged and said, "I don't know. I never ask."  
  
"What he means is, that we were not told." interjected Aurie, rolling her eyes.  
  
"I can't believe they left just two weeks before blitz season starts." sighed Tida, balancing the ball on her head.  
  
"What's there to see when you think about it?" questioned Aurie with a shrug. "The Aurochs have been undefeated for almost eighteen years now. It won't be a big deal until our team hits twenty."  
  
Tidus, momentarily forgetting the more serious matters, asked, "You both play?"  
  
"Left forward and left defense." nodded Tida with a wide grin.  
  
"You got my old position?" asked the blond blitzer proudly.  
  
"Yeah, it unexpectedly opened up two seasons ago, so I switched over from the right." said Tida, glancing at Aurie and hanging her head in a very Yuna-like way.  
  
Tidus looked at Wakka's daughter questioningly.  
  
"My older brother ... Chappu ... was the left forward for two seasons. He started young, you know? Then Tida came up with this special combination move ..." Aurie explained.  
  
"Poison Nap. The new combo techs were all the rage ..."  
  
"And this Guado copied it off her and used it on Chappu."  
  
"It was near the end of the game ... His HP was seriously depleted."  
  
"Don't tell me. He died, right?" asked Tidus, wincing.  
  
"No, actually, we got him out of the pool in time, Tiron, Tida, and me, but he was ... crippled. He hasn't played blitzball since." explained Aurie.  
  
"Wakka had such plans for Cousin Chappu. My fancy tech ruined them..." Tida started to say.  
  
"Oh, stop it!" groaned Tiron. "If anyone is to blame it's that Guado. He knew Chappu was on his last leg. He didn't have to do it to him!"  
  
"He doesn't blame you. Neither does dad." Aurie reassured her.  
  
"That was the only game we lost in ten years too ..." sighed Tida.  
  
"Don't even start about my being kicked off the team either." Tiron told her sharply.  
  
"I wasn't."  
  
"Yeah, well, thanks then. I love the Zanarkand Abes, and someday we're going to take the cup." he said with a less than confident smile, doing his best to try and cheer Tida up.  
  
Auron cleared his throat to get the attention of the trio, who had momentarily forgotten the visitors, but Tidus broke in before Auron could say one word.  
  
"There's a team in Zanarkand again?" he questioned.  
  
"The city was rebuilt about fourteen years ago. I guess you've been out of the loop, ya?" said Aurie.  
  
"I suppose you could say that." Tidus agreed.  
  
"This can wait." said Auron, cutting in impatiently. "You say that Yuna and her guardians are gone, correct? Is there anyone who can tell us why and where?" he asked them.  
  
"Um, Maroda might know." suggested Tida.  
  
"Or Uncle Pacce." suggested Tiron.  
  
"Take us to them." said Auron firmly.  
  
  
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A/N: Thoughts? Opinions? Insults? Reviews?   
  



	2. In the house of Maroda and Lulu

Chapter Two  
  
In the house of Maroda and Lulu  
  
  
The main portion of the village, still a moderate walk from the beach and docks, had grown into a splendid little town of stone buildings and cobbled rows. Tidus, whose memory of the Farplane was becoming more and more faint as he acclimated to the world of the living again, was rather impressed with the work that had been done, though it still couldn't hold a candle to his ancient and unforgettable Zanarkand. To Jecht and Auron, Besaid was hardly more than a fishing village once or twice visited, but to Tidus it was where he first met Yuna, Wakka, and Lulu. It was special, despite any alterations that may have occurred.  
  
"Things have changed." he admitted quietly, noticing Tida looking at him as he glanced around the town in wide-eyed disbelief.  
  
"I can imagine. Mom says that Besaid was once just as small as Kilika or the other villages than have sprang up since the Calm began." agreed Tida.  
  
Jecht chuckled quietly as he watched the pair. His son had been angry that he had never been around while he was growing up. Tidus's daughter, on the other hand, seemed fine. But would it last or would the resentment surface? What form would it take if it did?  
  
"You know, she seems a lot like you ... both of you. But why not? I suppose she could be your granddaughter." Auron said softly, finding some satisfaction in the fact that Jecht was a grandfather.  
  
"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?" exclaimed Jecht a little too loudly. "Are you saying that I'm old?"  
  
"Look, if you guys want to see my dad, you'd better hurry up. He likes to take a nap in the afternoon." said Tiron impatiently.  
  
"Wow, now I feel old." said Tidus, remembering brave, if not stern Maroda, who had been only a few scant years his elder.  
  
The house that Tiron led them to was surrounded by a quaint wooden fence with a gate the swung slowly open and closed in the ocean breeze. A man with wind-swept black hair was fiddling with the hinges of the gate. Tidus recognized him after a moment as none other than Pacce, though he looked less dimwitted as an adult and had grown into a rather tall and strapping twenty-something. Pacce rose to his feet and dusted his clothes off as he watched them approach. Then Aurie squealed and giggled before running straight for him at breakneck speed. Tidus, not to mention her namesake, winced as she threw herself at him full force, not quite knocking him down, but extracting an audible oomph! as they collided.  
  
"Easy, Aurie! You aren't a kid anymore!" chuckled Pacce hesitantly, sounding almost as though he had a couple of bruised or bruising ribs.  
  
"Darn right!" she agreed, lowering her eyelids seductively and releasing her grip on him.   
  
Pacce blushed as he took a few wary steps back before turning his attention to the three men accompanying his young friends. It was readily apparent that Aurie was something of a holy terror.  
  
"Are you all who I think you are?" he asked them, his eyes darting from Tidus to Auron and back.  
  
"Yeah." nodded Tidus.  
  
"They're here to see dad." Tiron clarified.  
  
"I imagine so." Pacce answered, opening the gate for them.  
  
As they passed Aurie grabbed him by the arm and forcibly dragged him along, at least somewhat to his chagrin. This sort of thing had apparently been going on for some time.  
  
Inside the cozy stone cottage, Maroda sat in a comfortable green armchair, reading a book with a pair of small reading glasses perched on his nose. They looked oddly out of place as Maroda hardly seemed that much older than when Tidus and Auron had last seen him, almost eighteen years earlier.  
  
He closed the book and rose to his feet with a surprised expression on his face as the group shuffled into the house.  
  
"Sir Tidus? Sir Auron? And, if I am not mistaken, Sir Jecht? How can this be? Has the whole of the Farplane turned itself inside out?" he questioned.  
  
"No, I do not think so, but we are here nonetheless." answered Auron.  
  
"They want to know where Lady Yuna and her guardians went." Tiron explained, taking a seat in a nearby windowsill.  
  
Aurie dragged Pacce to an overstuffed couch where Tida joined them, leaving the legendary guardians to stand, which they did not seem to mind. Tidus was still slightly disconcerted by the fact that Lulu had married Isaaru's guardian and that she lived with him in such a very un-Lulu-like house with curtains and doilies and so forth.  
  
"To Bevelle, of course." answered Maroda, looking at the trio intently. "But if you're all here ... then maybe the situation is far more grave than Sir Gatta or Lady Yuna believed."  
  
"Situation?" questioned Tidus.  
  
"The Guado ... I think you know much of the history ... They haven't exactly been friendly to the Yevonites since Maester Seymour was killed. From time to time we hear things. Not all is well in Guadosalam. The Farplane is no longer tended or guarded, and there has been rumor of a coming war." Maroda informed them.  
  
"If they're planning to go to Guadosalam, then we had better go too. If they've been gone three days, they could be in Luca by now. We could catch up ..." suggested Tidus hastily.  
  
"No, they took the airship to Bevelle. They have certainly reached it by now, but Sir Gatta is a thoughtful man. He would delay them from any hasty action." said Maroda.  
  
"The Crusader Gatta from Besaid, from here? Him? Thoughtful?" questioned Tidus.  
  
"The operation at Mi'hen changed him. It made him stronger and given to deliberate and weighty thoughts." explained Maroda.  
  
"Okay. Then can we catch up with them?" questioned Tidus.  
  
"It is a day by boat to Kilika and another to Luca. It is far to Bevelle by land." said Auron, shaking his head.  
  
"The times have changed. It is only eight hours by steamer to Luca. Then you can charter a small airship to Bevelle." said Maroda.  
  
"But isn't that against the teachings?" questioned Tidus with a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.  
  
"When Lady Yuna was a Maestress, she granted many dispensations regarding machina. It is all right." Maroda assured him.  
  
"Great. Then when can we leave?" asked Tidus.  
  
"You are eager to see Yuna again, no?" asked Maroda with a smile.  
  
Tidus looked uncomfortable as he replied, "We have a lot to talk about."  
  
Maroda glanced at Tida and nodded his agreement.  
  
"I will make arrangements at the port. The steamers always leave at night. It is most convenient." he informed them.  
  
"Great." agreed Jecht as Auron nodded mutely.  
  
"You, come with me." said Maroda, gesturing toward Jecht.  
  
"Huh? Why me?"  
  
"There are still fiends on the roads, and though they are few, I do not relish fighting any of them alone." he explained. "And I believe that you may have quite an interesting story to tell." Maroda added with a smile.  
  
"Fine." nodded Jecht, following him out.  
  
"Hey, what about me!" called Tiron, popping out of the window sill.  
  
"Entertain our guests while I am gone." instructed Maroda.  
  
Tidus grabbed the vacated chair as soon as the door had closed. Tiron, who appeared to be sulking, returned to his perch while Auron leaned impassively in a corner. To the untrained eye, he almost seemed tired, but to Tidus, he appeared to be thinking, pondering, as he stood there.  
  
"Your brother Chappu. What does he look like?" Tidus asked Aurie after an awkward pause, which he feared that she was going to fill by pinching Pacce. He half wondered if this Chappu looked a little like him too.  
  
"He looks just like me except he has a ..." she began to say.  
  
But Pacce, who had a very alarmed look on his face, clamped a hand over her mouth before she could finish the sentence. Tidus was impressed. He moved pretty quickly for a big guy.  
  
"Hey! I wasn't going to say anything bad. I swear!" exclaimed Aurie when he had released her.  
  
"Aurie, we all know you swear. Isn't that kind of the point?" asked Tiron with a windy sigh.  
  
"He has a goatee, all right?"  
  
"Like that thing Wakka used to have on his chin?" questioned Tidus, whose opinion of Aurie had just been confirmed.  
  
"He still has it." Tida told him, rolling her eyes and scooting away from Pacce on the couch, who himself was attempting to avoid Aurie's elbow, which kept finding his ribs.  
  
"Does he still blitz?" asked Tidus.  
  
"At his age? Come on! He coaches, of course, but dad hasn't been in the sphere pool in ten years." scoffed Aurie, her attention drawn away from her quarry.  
  
"Does he happen to coach the home team?"  
  
"You betcha." grinned the star player of the Aurochs, her fingertips lightly touching the blitzball that rested at her feet.   
  
Tidus could see that the game meant a lot to Tida. For Aurie and Tiron it was probably just blitzball, but for her it was obviously something more: a connection to her past, to her heritage, to her father.  
  
"He came out of retirement and everything." Aurie added, proud of her father, and for good reason. Despite dozens of line-up changes, the Aurochs seldom lost a single match.  
  
"I never saw him so mad, never before and never after." chuckled Tiron.  
  
"What happened?" asked Tidus.  
  
"The league was divided into two divisions when the new teams started. Wakka was just furious." Pacce explained.  
  
"The Guado, the Ronso, Zanarkand, Bevelle, and the Calm Lands formed up the Northern Division while Besaid, Kilika, Luca, the Al-Bhed, Lake Macalania, and Mi'hen Settlement comprise our division. It was crazy at first, but ... it gave some really great players the opportunity to go professional." said Tida.  
  
"But you don't get play every team?" questioned Tidus with a frown, which garnered laughter from Tiron and Aurie.  
  
"Exactly what Wakka said!" laughed Tiron.  
  
"Tournament and exhibition games, but not during the actual league season. It wouldn't be practical." shrugged Tida.  
  
"The four teams who have the most wins play each other at the end of the season in a short, round robin, tournament-style mini-season." explained Pacce, who was a devoted blitzball fan and an amateur goalie.  
  
"We, the Aurochs, go every year." said Tida, hesitating a glance at Tiron.  
  
"We, the Zanarkand Abes, don't go any year." he said. "But maybe things will be different this season." he added.  
  
Auron sighed as he watched Tidus hunch forward in his chair, hardly even blinking as the group explained the nuances of modern blitzball to him. In life, in dream, or in death blitzball was never far from that boy's mind. Not that Auron hadn't developed a better appreciation of the sport on the Farplane, watching Tidus and Jecht's team play against that of Lord Ohalland. He had even tried out for the right tackle position in a moment of weakness. But, of course, there wasn't that much more to death than blitzball, sake, and remembering. Life, on the other, was more than just a game.  
  
Interrupting the rather engaging, although trivial conservation, Auron questioned, "Is there still a temple in Besaid?"  
  
Tida smiled at the quiet, brooding guardian and answered, "Of course. It is where it has always been, but it is difficult to see since the market and some of the newer buildings were constructed."  
  
"Then I will visit it. It has been a long time." said Auron, walking toward the door under that pretense.  
  
"I'll go with you." said Aurie with a grin, springing from the couch.  
  
"Do you believe that I need a guide?" questioned Auron.  
  
"Wouldn't want you to get lost in the big city." she said, crossing her arms and daring him to refuse. For a moment Tidus thought he saw a glimmer of relief in Pacce's eyes.  
  
"Very well." agreed Auron gruffly.  
  
Just before Auron and Aurie darted out the door she turned and called, "Pacce, let's go."  
  
He just groaned softly as he left the couch and plodded after them.  
  
"Hang in there!" laughed Tidus as they left.  
  
"She's always loved Pacce. Ever since she returned from living with the Al-Bhed and poor Chappu ... Aurie has been less than hesitant to let it show." Tiron explained, sounding perhaps just a little jealous.  
  
"Not than he doesn't love her too." argued Tida. "But how do you say that one of the best tackles ever to play blitzball, huh?"  
  
"If she were less aggressive ..." began Tiron.  
  
"If she were older ..." Tida countered.  
  
"So Pacce grew up here?" questioned Tidus, wondering how the disgraced summoner Isaaru and his band of brothers had wound up in Besaid.  
  
"Yeah. Dad and Isaaru brought him with them when they came here." nodded Tiron. The young man read the expression on Tidus's face well. "You want to know why here, right?"  
  
"Yeah, kind of." nodded Tidus.  
  
"You can't tell Pacce any of this. He ... doesn't know." warned Tida.  
  
"All right."  
  
"When Isaaru was forbidden to continue his pilgrimage, he wandered with his guardians, homeless and forgotten, through Spira while everyone else celebrated the Eternal Calm. Even after he guarded Bevelle and everything during the weeks of turmoil after Maester Mika died. It didn't matter. Then one day Lady Yuna sent a message for them to come to Besaid, where they could live not as exiles, but as welcome guests." Tiron told him.  
  
"And Pacce doesn't know about the battle between Isaaru and Yuna in the Via Purifico?"  
  
"No, and neither does Aurie. With the way she feels about him and all ... dad never thought it was safe to tell her. It would kill Pacce if he ever found out. Isaaru was a hero to him." said Tiron solemnly.  
  
"He was a hero to a lot of us." said Tida softly, cupping her chin in her hands as she sighed.  
  
"Then, after he was gone and we were old enough, Maroda told us the truth." said Tiron.  
  
"You were disappointed." said Tidus.  
  
"Well, yeah." said Tida, frowning as she looked up. "We all grew up thinking that Isaaru was at Yuna's heels as she journeyed toward Zanarkand to defeat Sin. We thought that ... he had merely lost their bet."  
  
"And you found out that he was something of a traitor." Tidus finished for her.  
  
"Exactly." said Tiron.  
  
"But Isaaru was a decent guy. When he followed the orders of Bevelle and the temples, he sent Pacce and Maroda away to protect them and he made Bevelle a safer place while Yuna dealt with Sin." argued Tidus.  
  
"He sent them away from danger and dishonor because he was only doing what had to be done in accordance with the demands of temples, to which Lord Isaaru was entirely devoted." said Tiron, rolling his eyes. "Lady Yuna tells us that periodically." he explained.  
  
"It's true." said Tidus.  
  
"Maybe so." shrugged Tiron.  
  
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A/N: I think I may have played way too many games of blitzball myself. I promise the character exposition is nearly over and there will be some action. Review ...please?  
  



	3. Things of the past

Chapter Three  
  
Things of the past  
  
  
Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, Maroda and Jecht were taking a 'short cut' through a section of the isle of Besaid still covered by brush and ruin. Maroda led the way, turning quite frequently to question Jecht concerning his pilgrimage with Lord Braska and his experiences as a final aeon and as Sin.  
  
"Why are you so curious? You know what it was like to be guardian. The days were long, the nights were anything but restful, and the road seemed never ending ... at least until you realized what the end meant and then it came all too soon." said Jecht.  
  
Maroda pulled a notebook from his pocket and scribbled down the words that Jecht had just spoken.  
  
"I'm writing a book about all the guardians of the high summoners. It is strange that no one ever recorded their experiences, so I am attempting to do so for posterity." explained Maroda. "You were something of a mystery to me before you walked into my house today. I could hardly fill two pages about you."  
  
"A historian, huh?" said Jecht, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably.  
  
"There is little need for guardians these days and I am too old to learn to blitz." chuckled Maroda.  
  
"Not too many fiends to fight?" questioned Jecht.  
  
"No, Sir Jecht, not very many."  
  
"Then I guess you asked me along just to talk."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Then I suppose I can answer all these questions, but it might take a while." answered Jecht, jokingly putting on the attitude of a smug and confident blitzball pro.  
  
"There's a bar down at the docks. We could sit there and converse for a while, no?" asked Maroda.  
  
"What do mean 'no'? Hell yes, I say!" laughed Jecht, slapping the historian heartily on the back.  
  
"Perfect." coughed Maroda.  
  
  
The market was crowded that morning as Aurie led her namesake and Pacce through it toward the temple at the center of the small township. They stopped at the temple stairs. Auron looked up at the unchanging structure. It had been kept in good repair and was obviously still the heart of the highly religious town. A few people were leaving. A few people were entering. Auron glanced at Pacce.  
  
"You, stay here." he said to the smiling raven hair man. Turning toward Aurie, he said, "Come with me."  
  
"Huh?" she questioned.  
  
Auron leveled his cool, one-eyed gaze at her and shrugged his shoulders toward the temple entrance.  
  
"Um ... okay." said Aurie, clasping her hands behind her back as she followed him up the stairs.  
  
"Why did your mother name you after me?" he questioned when they were out of earshot of Pacce.  
  
"Mother, Lady Yuna, and Lady Lulu made a pact when it was discovered that Yuna was pregnant. They wanted to name their children after the guardians who were lost on the pilgrimage. Lady Yuna chose to name her daughter for Tidus, Lulu and Maroda came up with a combination of both names, and Rikku chose your name to give to one of her children. But father had other plans, ya? He wanted to name his firstborn son after his brother Chappu. Mother reluctantly agreed, believing that she would have another son to bear your name. But I came along instead."  
  
"I see."  
  
"But only out of one eye." she remarked.  
  
"You remind me of your mother. Rikku was ... less than hesitant to speak her mind."  
  
"She loved you, ya know?" commented Aurie off-hand.  
  
"Is that so?" asked Auron as they entered the temple, lowering their voices accordingly.  
  
He was surprised in a bittersweet kind of way. He had had a certain fondness for the Al-Bhed girl. Her passionate desire to save Yuna had reminded Auron of himself at her age, or not much older. But Rikku had been so energetic, so full of life. And he had been a guardian dead for ten years and a monk for many years before. He had never permitted himself more than that small feeling of camaraderie and bond of guardianship that he felt for all of his companions from Jecht to Kimahri to even Wakka and Lulu. But as he stepped into the Temple of Besaid at Aurie's side, he privately acknowledged that if fate had been a kinder mistress, there could have been so much more. Tidus was incredibly lucky, he decided, to have a daughter that was his own, not only in name, but by right of birth.  
  
As they walked forward and knelt at the base of Lord Braska's statue, moving as a single, silent entity, he glanced at her and wondered briefly what Aurie would have looked like if she had been his daughter.  
  
"Auron?" she questioned softly, staring up at Braska, unable or unwilling to look at her companion. "Did you love her too?"  
  
He did not reply. He could not reply. He could only stare up at the image of High Summoner Braska as a single tear coursed down his cheek.  
  
  
Back at the cottage that Maroda and Lulu built during the first full year of the Calm, the trio of blitzball players and fans had finished their discussion of the game to the satisfaction of all, covering every topic from regulations to popular players. Then Tidus decided to take advantage of Aurie's absence to pose a few questions.  
  
"How did Wakka and Rikku, you know, get together?" he questioned, mostly to Tida, who was a year or more older than Tiron.  
  
The young blitz star smiled and clutched her blitzball to her chest. Obviously this was a question to which she knew the answer.  
  
"Aurie's grandfather, my great uncle, Cid told her all about it when she lived in Home. It's kind of romantic, you know?" said Tida. Tidus nodded that he understood before she continued. "When the last battle with Sin was over, everyone sojourned in Bevelle until new Maesters were appointed and Yevon was reasonably united again. The days in Bevelle were very quiet and not always busy, especially for Wakka, who, though a faithful guardian, was neither a cleric nor a politician. At times Rikku waited upon Lady Yuna, but she too was left out many discussions and decisions."  
  
"And this is romantic ... how?" asked Tidus.  
  
"Well, they were both grieving. They were all grieving, but Rikku and Wakka could not ignore their grief. Of course, they were happy the Sin was gone and Spira was free. But the cost, it seemed to them, had been a high one. The price, Auron and you, was seldom far from their minds. And Wakka finally had the chance to grieve for his brother. It was a difficult time for them. Cid said that they often stood on the Highbridge in the middle of the night, talking quietly or remembering, sometimes in silence. They fell in love amid their tears under the stars in Bevelle, and instead of returning to her Home, Rikku returned with Wakka to his." she explained.  
  
"Wow, Tida has a serious, thoughtful side, just like Yuna." thought Tidus as he listened to her speak. Aloud he only said, "Yeah, that is romantic, I guess, but in a really sad way."  
  
"You know, Tidus, we've told you all this stuff about blitzball, Besaid, and our folks, but you haven't told us anything about you or the Farplane or anything else. I think it's your turn." said Tiron impatiently from the window.  
  
"Okay. Ask me a question then." said Tidus easily.  
  
"Yeah, I've got one. You, Jecht, and Sir Auron are here. But where is Lord Braska? Where is my grandfather?" asked Tida with a sudden frown.  
  
Tidus suddenly looked puzzled, as though the thought had finally occurred to him as well. Where was Yuna's father? If the three of them had been allowed back to Spira, then where was Braska? Tidus had seen him, not to mention his wife, often enough on the Farplane, though the recollections were becoming increasingly hazy. He had regularly visited Jecht and Auron, watched a few games of blitzball, but Tidus could not recall where he was himself just before his awakening in Spira much less the location of Lord Braska.  
  
"You know, I have no idea, Tida." he replied.  
  
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A/N: I want to thank everyone who has reviewed so far (Shido21, Spooky Fyre, and Sayiera).  



	4. The missing piece

Chapter Four  
  
The missing piece  
  
  
His steps were heavy as he trod the greenish and unfamiliar pathways before him. All was quiet and the air seemed heavy. The glimmer of lights, an illuminated city couched secretively in the trees, caught his eye as he walked. Those lights ... There was so many ... There were too many, but they were familiar. Something familiar at last. It eased his heart, which felt unreasonably troubled, almost leaden in his breast. One foot eased in front of the other as he leaned upon his staff. He was uncertain how it had come to be in his hand again. He had laid it aside ... Or had he? The grip seemed warm from the moment his hand closed upon it. When had that happened? He was unsure.  
  
He lifted his eyes as he approached an archway of aged and venerable trees, luminescent and sleepy, shrouded in a veil of mystery. The path beneath the arch led him into a great rotunda that seemed to be the very bole of a living and ancient tree. He halted his steps and looked around in awe.  
  
"I ... knew this place ... once." he whispered aloud as a breeze caused his robes to rustle about him.  
  
In the quiet of that morning, the sound of light running footsteps reached his listening ears.  
  
Presently two figures came into view. They were tall beings who ran with steps both graceful and shuffling. Their hair was mossy green, much like the light that fell about them all, and they seemed not to be of the race of Men.  
  
"Hold!" called one of the pair. "What business have you in Guadosalam, Yevonite?" he questioned, knowing the intruder by his garments to be a stranger and follower of Yevon.  
  
"I ... do not know. It is a strange thing. Were you to ask me my name or where I come from, I should be answerless as well." he told them.  
  
"Wait! Me thinks that I have his visage seen in the accursed Temple of Macalania wherein our last lord was slain! He is the one they called High Summoner Braska!" exclaimed the second Guado after studying him for a moment.  
  
"Yes, I believe that was my name." nodded Lord Braska thoughtfully as he leaned wearily upon his summoning staff.  
  
"This will be glad tidings for Lord Nav! He has long sought some sure advantage against that murdering Yevonite wench!" said the first Guado, reaching to grab Braska by the arm.  
  
"Stay! Let us not act hastily! First, we take his staff." said the Guado who had identified him, snatching the prop from Braska's hand with cruel force.  
  
"I beg of you!" gasped Braska, sinking to his knees.  
  
"Yes, you will beg of us before this all over, and your daughter as well!"  
  
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A/N: I tried revamping the summary. Maybe more people will read and review? Oh, and I know this one is short. I really wanted it to be its own chapter ... It just made sense to me. But don't let that stop anyone from calling it short.  
  
  



	5. Conversations with guardians

Chapter Five  
  
Conversations with guardians  
  
  
Jecht found the bar down by the peer a little disappointing by his standards. Auron and Braska had released him from his no-more-drinking-promise years earlier. The man was dead. Why not let him have a beer? It seemed only fair. But the singular pub on Besaid served only drinks with little, colorful umbrellas in them, which was not at all to Jecht's liking.  
  
"Lady Yuna doesn't approved of hard liquor being served on Besaid, Sir Jecht." Maroda explained to him as he glared at the glass in front of him.  
  
"Yeah, and neither did Braska, but he would never stopped people from having a good time." sulked Jecht.  
  
"True enough, I suppose, but with Luca so close these days ..." shrugged Maroda.  
  
"Point taken." said Jecht. "You know, my son never mentioned you, not that I can remember, and he told me just about everything about Yuna's pilgrimage." he commented.  
  
"We were not the of best friends." said Maroda quietly.  
  
"You were enemies?"  
  
"Not exactly. We were ... on different sides when Lady Yuna was branded as a traitor to Yevon, although it was not by choice. Strange, no?"  
  
"Yeah, strange." agreed Jecht. "You know, Maroda, maybe we should go back now. We've taken care of business and all."  
  
"You're right." he answered, closing his notebook, which was filled with information, some startling and some trivial, which Jecht had imparted to him willingly. "We would not wish to worry your son." he added.  
  
"Yeah, Tidus might come looking for us." agreed Jecht. As they walked out of the bar Jecht asked him, "A lot of kids are named after Auron and Tidus, right?"  
  
"Yes." Maroda nodded as they stepped onto the sandy white beach.  
  
"How come no one was named after me? I was a great guardian too, you know."  
  
Just then a large, but scruffy dog dashed past them toward the spray of the ocean and the gentle waves that touched the shore of Besaid. Hot on its heels was a small boy.  
  
"Come back here, Jecht! Come back!" the boy yelled after the hound.  
  
Jecht stopped in his tracks and glared at them. Maroda chuckled softly.  
  
"You were Sin. It would have been an ill omen to name a child in your honor." he said to placate Jecht.  
  
"Yeah, well, I don't think it's funny. Not one bit." he growled as they continued walking.  
  
"Of course." said Maroda, hiding a smile as he made one last note on his subject.  
  
  
The light of the midday sun stung Auron's good eye as he left the cool and shadowy temple interior with Aurie, returning to the sunlit and busy outer world of Besaid. He moved his glasses up slightly to fend off the offensive glare and glanced at Aurie as she allowed the wind to ruffle her sun-bleached hair and took a deep breath of the air of her hometown. She always felt as though she were stepping out of the past and into the present when she walked out of the temple. Glancing at the scarlet robed figure at her side, she acknowledged that at least this time she had good reason to feel that way.  
  
"Auron, are you sorry you came here? Or are you glad?" she questioned, watching his bronze eye sweep over the crowded market beneath them at the bottom of the temple steps.  
  
"It is an unexpected chapter of a story that I thought had ended long ago. I am both. I am sorry that it has been so long and that it seems that we have all returned in a time of trouble and unrest. I am glad to have the chance to see what has become of my friends and of the world that I called home for much of my life." he replied.  
  
"Wow. Deep." she commented, her gaze coming to rest on Pacce, who was seated on the last step below them.  
  
"You are in love with the young guardian?" he questioned, following her gaze.  
  
"I lived among the Al-Bhed for a while. I learned a lot from them, not just about machina and mechanics though. They taught me that it is best to pursue with all my heart that which I love, because no one can say when I may lose it. Ever since, I have been pursuing Pacce." she told him slowly.  
  
"Deep." Auron chuckled, smiling softly at her behind his collar.  
  
"Tell him that." she laughed, elbowing the elder guardian.  
  
"I think he knows. But perhaps he lacks courage where you are concerned."  
  
Aurie giggled and said, "Then I'll just have to find a way to give him some of mine!"  
  
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A/N: Thank you for reviewing the previous chapter, rock-star-vt: "I'm very intrigued in how Tidus, Jecht, and Auron came back." Yeah, I'm going to answer that one. But not soon.  
  



	6. Besaid to Luca & Auroch to Abe

Chapter Six  
  
Besaid to Luca & Auroch to Abe  
  
  
"I booked passage for seven." Maroda informed them, reclaiming his comfortable chair when they had all gathered together again.  
  
"But only three of us should go." said Auron forcefully, looking at Tida, Tiron, and Aurie with some discomfort and annoyance. Was it his eternal destiny to travel with teenagers?  
  
"You will need guides for this journey, Sir Auron, and I am loath to leave Besaid unattended." he explained. Smiling, Maroda added, "And I do not think they would be easily left behind."  
  
"You'll need us before you get to Luca, ya? I mean, where would you go to hire an airship to Bevelle, huh?" asked Aurie, putting her hands on her hips.  
  
Auron stood over the trio of youngsters, putting the matter of the formerly young Sir Pacce to the side as he questioned them: "Can you fight? Any of you? Have you fought?"   
  
Tiron sort of looked away, finding the view from the window of his house suddenly very interesting. Aurie twirled her cousin's blitzball in her hands absently, hanging her head in the face of the legendary and suddenly quite daunting guardian. But Tida lifted her chin and produced a bubbling blue sword in answer to his question. Tidus recognized it as his own Brotherhood sword, which had been a gift from Wakka. Little did he realize that the sword had had many owners: Wakka in his absence, Wakka's only son Chappu, briefly Aurie before her trip Home, and lastly Tida.  
  
"I fight ... I train ... along the Mi'hen Road ... between the settlement and Luca during the season. It keeps my reflexes sharp." she explained. Tida glanced at her two friends and added, "Tiron and Aurie can too, when they want to do it. They're terrors to the local fiends."  
  
"Small potatoes." murmured Tiron.  
  
"Yeah." echoed Aurie.  
  
"How can someone be such a menace and not know how to wield a blade?" thought Auron, looking down at the trouble-making girl in momentary annoyance.  
  
"Then it's settled." said Tida. "We are all coming with you."  
  
"Right." agreed Tidus.  
  
Auron glared at him. Didn't the boy realize the kind of danger they might be facing? Fiends? Guado? Airships?  
  
"Pacce can come, but the others stay. They are too inexperienced." he told Tidus.  
  
"Give them a break, Auron. Didn't you tell me and Yuna and everyone when we were about their age that this was our world? What? You're alive again, so you're taking it back?" asked Tidus.  
  
"You still are their age. Maybe you should sit this one out too." retorted Auron rather unfairly.  
  
"Hey! Leave my boy alone! He's proved himself time and again." Jecht cut in.  
  
"For Yevon's sake! Am I going to have to separate you three?" thundered Maroda, springing angrily from the chair.  
  
The three former guardians looked at him blankly for a moment, the argument forgotten in their surprise. Maroda actually managed to raise his voice. For an instant even Jecht and Auron felt like seven-year-olds.  
  
"Thanks, dad." said Tiron quietly.  
  
"You're all going on the journey, and you're all going to be careful too. Now, you have four hours before that boat leaves. I suggest you make good use of that time." said Maroda, leaving no room for further discussion.  
  
  
Tiron and Tidus found themselves standing at the docks several hours later. They had bought the usual supplies for the journey and outfitted themselves for the undertaking. Tidus glanced at Tiron and felt a trifle annoyed as he realized that the young man didn't appear to have his weapon with him.  
  
"You should always keep your gear, your weapon especially, close at hand." Tidus admonished him.  
  
"I have them." Tiron assured him.  
  
"Oh, yeah? Let me see then."  
  
Tiron held up his fists and said, "These a the tools of my trade. I'm a black mage like my mother, but I don't need any dolls. I've perfected the art."  
  
"So you fight empty-handed?" asked Tidus dubiously.  
  
"You bet." said Tiron confidently.  
  
Tidus glanced over the boy's shoulder and nodded toward a small crowd that included Tida and Aurie. He knew by the uniform that they were the Besaid Aurochs. Tiron turned and looked at them with a wistful expression.  
  
"Your old team."  
  
"Yeah." sighed Tiron.  
  
"You want to tell me about why you left them?"  
  
"Thrown off."  
  
"That much is obvious. So why?"  
  
"It was after the game when Chappu was hurt." the boy shrugged.  
  
"You went after the Guado that did it?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Fine. I give then."  
  
"I went after the bottom of a glass for three weeks straight. When I finally ... sobered up, I was off the team. I had missed five games." he explained, scuffing his shoe against the deck.  
  
"Tough break."  
  
"At first no other team wanted me. I was not such a good risk. But Wakka put in a good word for me with the Abes." shrugged Tiron.  
  
Tidus turned his attention back to Tida and Aurie and their team. They seemed to be missing something. Maybe it was Tiron. He wasn't sure.  
  
"Are you two gonna linger there or get on board that ship?" questioned Jecht from behind them.  
  
"We've still got a few minutes." said Tidus. "Where's Auron anyway?" he asked.  
  
Jecht jerked his thumb in the direction of the beach.   
  
Auron, Pacce, and Maroda were standing there, exchanging parting words near the surf. The youngest of the three was looking toward the sea with a mixture of nervousness and premature homesickness in his eyes. Since his days as the guardian of Lord Isaaru had ended, Pacce seldom left Besaid. Of course, he traveled to Luca for blitzball, but he had never left, knowing that he was going into uncertainty and danger.  
  
Maroda laid a hand on his shoulder and said something that even Auron could not hear over the muted roar of the ocean.  
  
But Pacce could hear him when he said simply, "Look after them, Pacce."  
  
  
The cabins on the S.S. Otherworld were few in number, but spacious. It was several weeks before blitz season kicked off, so there was little travel between Besaid and the mainland. Jecht and Tidus tossed their belongings into a two-bunk cabin before heading to the deck of the impressive ship. Not surprisingly, Aurie dragged Pacce bodily into another cabin, despite his rather half-hearted protests. To Auron's surprise, Tida squeezed past him into the cabin that he was planning to occupy and claimed one of the narrow bunks as her own.  
  
"Sweet!" yelled Tiron, realizing that he would have a berth to himself for the overnight trip.  
  
Auron fixed Tida with a piercing look as she began unpacking some of her things.  
  
"Tiron snores!" she hissed quietly, taking his meaning.  
  
"As serious as that?" asked Auron sardonically.  
  
"Trust me." she said, shaking her head. She narrowed her eyes at him and questioned, "You mind?"  
  
"No, I suppose not." answered Auron with a slight shrug, wondering how her father and grandfathers would feel if they knew.  
  
The absence of Lord Braska troubled him momentarily, but not for the first time. It was absurd that he, Auron of all people, should have a second chance. What about his truest friend and noble lord? Was he not also so deserving?  
  
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A/N: Thanks for another review Shido21!   



	7. A word remembered

Chapter Seven  
  
A word remembered  
  
  
It was a cell. Though he had never been on the inside of one, he felt certain that that was exactly what it was, a damp and miserable cell. Outside was a guard. Braska frowned. Guard? Now what did that remind him of? Snatches of passionately spoken words drifted through his memory like feathers loosed upon a breeze. They were soon gone and could not be collected again. The color red? Someone calling out to him? Tenderness wrapped in strength. Zeal cloaked in somber attitude.  
  
He shook his head and drew his knees up, only glancing at the spots of blood, dirt, and spittle upon his robes. They had jeered him, beat him, before bringing him to the small, caliginous dungeon. He had hardly understood why. Braska, they had called him, and he felt almost certain that it was his name. How had he forgotten something so vital as his own name? They had said ... They had intimated that he had a daughter and that they wished her harm. He felt a sickening sense of foreboding at this, and yet he could not remember any daughter, anyone named Yuna. But though they were his captors and cruel, he felt that they were being truthful, in as much as it served their purposes.  
  
They had taken him to one that they called Lord Nav. He was a thin ... person with greenish-bluish-grayish hair and a look of martial solemnity upon his ill-favored features. But he reminded Braska of someone with a somewhat more kindly face, though no less ugly. He allowed his mind to wander in search of that lordly, proud, and wise face. Who had he been? Braska coughed and touched his bruised ribs. Mayhap he was no more than a painting in the hall where he had been beaten beneath the watchful eye of the ruler of these uncouth individuals. Or no more than a flight of fancy of a desperate and wounded man.  
  
And the rest? The other memories? The ones that were so fleeting? What were they? Fancy or reality? A dream or waking life remembered through a veil? He rested his forehead on his knees and hoped not. If they were not reality, if they were only things his mind produced to soothe him in his misery, then from where and by whom would he be delivered?  
  
It was then that the forgotten word came to him.  
  
"Guardian." he whispered. "Where is my guardian?"  
  
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A/N: Thank you, Tidus-Girl-Yuna, for the review. And thank you, klepto-maniac0, for your insightful criticism. To which I give the following answers. I'm working on developing the original characters ... slowly. And this won't be an Aurikku. Although, I do enjoy reading them, mostly because I still remember what it was like to be young.  
  



	8. The Otherworld

Chapter Eight  
  
The Otherworld  
  
  
The sound of a minor commotion next door awakened Tida and Auron late in the night as the steamer plied through the waves between Besaid and Luca. The guardian swung his legs from the bed as Tida groped for the lantern, which had been turned down, but not extinguished. She glanced at Auron in the pale orange light and blushed as he reached for his robe and glasses. Without them, he seemed more man than myth.  
  
The muted sound of voices stopped him from throwing the robe on and Tida from leaving her bunk.  
  
"Aurie!" they heard Pacce shout, which was followed by the sound of thumping, banging, and an oddly throaty giggle that could only have belonged to Aurie herself.  
  
Auron relaxed, seeming to debate his course of action. Tida looked uncomfortably mortified on her friend's behalf.  
  
"I hope no one else can hear that." he commented with a soft sound of displeasure.  
  
"You aren't going to do something?" she asked, mildly surprised.  
  
He looked at the unfortunately thin wall that separated the two cabins and told her, "No, I suppose not." Auron, removing his glasses and returning them to a small shelf with his robe, added, "She seems mature enough to make her own decisions. And he sounds willing ... for tonight at least. Besides, if people took it upon themselves to meddle in these ... matters, you would not be here."  
  
"You knew ... about mother ... and Tidus?"  
  
"Not exactly, but certainly Kimahri did ... and he allowed it. I respect that decision."  
  
Tida looked at him uncertainly as he sat on the edge of his bunk, hands resting lightly on his thighs, clad as always in those gray, nondescript pants. His expression was difficult to read, but he was looking at her. Tida did not shrink beneath the scrutiny. Auron did not blink as he looked at her.  
  
A particularly loud, masculine groan from next door interrupted their solemn reverie. Tida blushed and looked away at last.  
  
"Tell me about him, about Tidus."  
  
"You can question him for yourself."  
  
"I ... I don't think I can."  
  
"It is a difficult thing." Auron agreed. "But worth it."  
  
"What if he doesn't ... What if I'm not ... I mean ..." she tried to say.  
  
"He does. You are. Do not be concerned." Auron reassured her, knowing quite well the questions that she was asking both him and herself:  
  
"What if he doesn't want me for a daughter? What if I'm not good enough?"  
  
Auron knew Tidus well enough to say with some assurance that he would try to be a better father than Jecht had been to him as a child. Although the two were reconciled, Tidus still understood and understood well what a disapproving, uncaring parent could do to someone Tida's age or younger. He would do his utmost to see that the same mistake didn't happen twice. Whether he would succeed or not was as much up to Tida as was to him.  
  
Tida smiled a little and nodded, much relieved.  
  
"Now turn that lamp down. We must be well rested for the journey ahead of us. I do not think it will be easy." he said.  
  
Tida complied with his wishes, but lay awake in the darkness for several minutes before she had enough courage to ask him another question.  
  
"Sir Auron?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"I overheard Uncle Wakka say that you died on your first pilgrimage."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"So it's true? You were dead when you journeyed with my mother?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"What happened?"  
  
She could hear him shifting uncomfortably in his narrow bunk, perhaps deciding whether or not to answer her question. Tida could almost feel his smoldering bronze eye upon her in the darkness. She shivered.  
  
"I went into battle alone ... against a foe too great for any one man to challenge. I was bested."  
  
"Oh." said Tida quietly.  
  
"Maybe you can learn this lesson with less pain and regret: do not rush hastily and alone into combat. Find those upon whom you can depend and keep them by your side." he told her.  
  
"I don't understand." she whispered, peering into the darkness where the legendary guardian lay.  
  
"Lady Yunalesca ... I rashly attempted to challenge her ... to exact vengeance for the death of Lord Braska. It was not yet time."  
  
Tida shivered again, momentarily visualizing the image of the guardian in his younger days as he charged the first summoner who had defeated Sin and began the spiral of death. Was this bravery? Was this foolhardiness? Was this grief? It was a tough call. Then she blinked and the image was gone, vanishing into the darkness that surrounded them.  
  
"You did avenge him in the end." she said.  
  
Auron chuckled aloud and replied, "We all did - Yuna, Tidus, all of us."  
  
"Good night." she said after a moment.  
  
"Yes, good night." he said, perplexed by the abrupt end to her inquiry, but closing his eyes nonetheless.  
  
  
The next morning just as the sun was beginning to turn the horizon a golden yellow, Tidus walked onto the deck of the Otherworld, yawning and stretching and ready to face another day in Spira. His eyes rested upon Aurie and Pacce, both standing near the bow of the steamer and looking out over the water. She had a blanket draped across her shoulders against the early morning chill, and his arm rested comfortably around her waist.  
  
"Wow. All it took was one night on the road." said Tidus, shaking his head in amazement.  
  
"Indeed." chuckled Auron, who was lingering the shadows nearby.  
  
"Don't do that! You want me to have a heart attack or something?"  
  
"We are only an hour or so from Luca. We have a great need of haste. Tell the others to pack their gear and assemble on deck."  
  
"What? I'm the errand boy now? I was a guardian too, you know." said Tidus, tossing his head.  
  
"It's been one thousand and thirty-four years since you were born and you still haven't grown up."  
  
"Fine, fine. I'll go." said Tidus.  
  
Aurie glanced over her shoulder as Tidus returned to the cabins. She smiled at Auron and nodded toward Pacce with an impish smile, almost as though she were asking him what he thought. She finally had what she always wanted.  
  
Auron nodded solemnly and made his way towards the stern. It was strange. He was happy for her, though the little bit of warrior monk that remained in him disapproved.  
  
"They are a handsome couple, but she will cloud his judgment or he will cloud hers before the end, I shouldn't wonder." he mused.  
  
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	9. The second stage of the journey

Chapter Nine  
  
The second stage of the journey  
  
  
Luca was as beautiful as ever that morning. Sun gleamed upon the metal of the blitzball stadium, and gulls were in the air. It was hardly a homecoming for any of them, but they all stood along the railing of the steamer as it pulled into harbor. But unlike Tidus or Jecht's first visit to the city with the stadium, there were neither crowds nor fanfare. Luca was a city of commerce, of course, but it was also a city still weeks away from the Yevon Cup and the official opening of blitz season. The dock where the steamer allowed its passengers to disembark was empty and quiet as they came ashore.  
  
"Follow me." said Aurie confidently, tugging Pacce by the hand and beckoning the others.  
  
"What for?" asked Jecht, who was still taking in the city. For him it had been almost thirty years, a very long time.  
  
"If we want an airship, we should see the Al-Bhed shopkeeper near the stadium. I bet he could get us a discount on passage to Bevelle." she replied cheerily.  
  
"How come?" asked Tidus as they began following her from the Lucan docks and into the city.  
  
"Cause he's a relative." she giggled.  
  
"Let me guess." said Tidus.  
  
"Okay." she agreed.  
  
"Rin?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"I was so sure too. Is it Cid then?"  
  
"Fraid not!"  
  
"I give. Who is it?"  
  
"You'll just have to wait." said Aurie with a grin, pulling Pacce ahead of everyone else as they made their way to the center of the city.  
  
  
The man standing behind the counter was tall and rather muscular in a lean sort of way, like a center forward in blitzball, and a good one too. An old pair of goggles hung around his neck. The shopkeeper had quite a collection of tattoos, but most were hidden by his clothing, which was a mismatch of Al-Bhed and Yevonite fashions. He smiled when he caught sight of Aurie with Pacce in tow.  
  
"Heala!" he called boisterously.  
  
"Ihlma!" she giggled in return, releasing Pacce, who was at least momentarily grateful.  
  
"Brother?" Tidus questioned, squinting at him and wondering if he learned to speak a language besides Al-Bhed.  
  
"You!" he boomed, pointing a finger at Tidus and jumping the counter top. "You knocked up my cousin and left her! Are you here to ... to ... impregnate my niece as well? Just wait until Cid finds out about this!" he shouted.  
  
"Um ... Ihlma? Ra ec rana du ramb Yuna!" said Aurie, stamping her foot and placing herself strategically between Brother and Tidus.  
  
"Please, Aurie, you don't have to speak in Al-Bhed anymore. I understand just fine." Brother said to her as his temper began to cool.  
  
"We need your help, Uncle." said Tida, stepping forward. "My ... father, and the rest of us, need an airship to Bevelle. I think mother and her guardians are in danger."  
  
"What kind of danger?" he asked, crossing his arms and still giving Tidus an evil look.  
  
"I ... don't know." she admitted.  
  
"Then how do you know she's in danger?" he asked skeptically.  
  
"Comeon! The dead have returned from the Farplane. When is that ever a good sign?" asked Aurie.  
  
Brother looked slowly from his niece to Tidus to Auron and Jecht and took a stumbling step backward as though seeing them all for the first time.  
  
"This is not possible!" he exclaimed.  
  
"Then what harm is there in giving a band of impossibilities a lift to Bevelle?" questioned Auron.  
  
"Right." he agreed, still dumbfounded.  
  
"Soon." pressed Aurie.  
  
"Very soon." said Auron firmly.  
  
"Right ..." Brother nodded. "Follow me."  
  
  
The airship was smaller than the one that had carried Auron and Tidus into battle so many years before, but it was also faster, or so Brother told them as he arranged for them to ride to Bevelle without paying a fee. Unfortunately, the only part of the interior of the ship that they saw was the cramped cargo hold into which they were bundled. It was obviously the cheapest way to travel, though certainly not as luxurious as their accommodations on the S.S. Otherworld.  
  
"It's cozy." Aurie argued against their grumblings, Tidus and Tiron's in particular, as she made herself comfortable on Pacce's lap. He turned beet red as she did so.  
  
"It is also a short trip." Brother reminded them from the hatch.  
  
"We can't thank you enough!" said Tida, who was sandwiched between Tidus and Auron. It was difficult to tell who was the most uncomfortable.  
  
"Pa lynavim!" he warned the two girls.  
  
"We will be, Ihlma!" Aurie assured him with a big grin.  
  
"What'd he say?" Jecht asked Tiron quietly.  
  
The boy, who knew only a little basic Al-Bhed, replied even more quietly, "He told them to be careful."  
  
"Oh." said Jecht, frowning. He had never bothered to study the language, although he remembered Braska speaking it from time to time with shopkeepers and the like. Lord Braska had been fluent.  
  
As Brother was beginning to close the hatch, Tida leaned forward in her seat and said haltingly, "Keja ... so muja ... du Cid!"  
  
"And give mine to Lady Yuna!" he replied, beaming at her attempt at speaking Al-Bhed before sealing them into the cargo hold of the airship.  
  
  
It wasn't pitch dark in the hold of the airship, but it was shadowy, lit mostly by orange emergency lights and daylight that filtered through tiny chinks in the hull. It was uncomfortably warm and crowded.  
  
"You know, " Tiron commented, "we could probably have scraped together fare for a passenger ship."  
  
"This ship was leaving. It is more convenient, even if comfort must be sacrificed." Auron replied.  
  
Everyone was quiet, listening to the dull roar of the engines as the airship lifted off and began to wing its way toward Bevelle. Pacce and Aurie, Auron noted, were beginning to look sleepy. Tiron and Jecht seemed rather bored. But the two people beside him, Tidus and Tida, looked positively uncomfortable. Auron nudged the girl unobtrusively.  
  
"You have your chance." he said in a low, growl-like whisper in her ear, nodding toward Tidus.  
  
She shook her head. Her eyes pleaded with him to leave her alone. The cargo hold of an airship was hardly the place for any discussion that she might have with the father who had left her before she was even born.  
  
"You're sure?" he prodded softly, his breath hot against her skin. Disappointment was in his tone.  
  
Tidus, finally taking notice of the elder guardian's whispering, cut his eyes at him in an expression that said, "You want to leave my daughter alone?" Obviously stating his unvoiced displeasure at the close company being kept by the two of them.  
  
Auron, mindful of his friend's feelings, leaned away from Tida, who was staring blankly at the gritty floor of the hold, and raised an eyebrow as though to say, "You don't trust me?"  
  
Tiron, perhaps the only one to notice the silent barrage of looks and glares, sighed and asked, "Are we there yet?" And promptly turned his attention to the ceiling of the hold. "Aurie's uncle was wrong. This is going to be the longest flight in the history of Spira." he thought.  
  
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A/N: Thanks for the reviews Bunny and sulou! And a special thanks to Shido21 for the reviews and the question: "One question though: how old are the children?" Um, I don't think I have said explicitly how old. Tida is 18 give or take a few months, Aurie and Chappu might be twins (I couldn't decide if the idea of 'twins' was over-used or not) and if so, they are on the high side of seventeen or so, and Tiron would be the youngest of the three at probably 16 - 17. I'm not so good with ages and keeping track of time. Oh, and thanks for the compliment about Auron. I guess you can tell he's my favorite.  
  
  



	10. Morning in Guadosalam

Chapter Ten  
  
Morning in Guadosalam  
  
  
He had slept the night through with his back to the wall and his knees drawn up close to him against the chill of the dungeon room. No one had bothered him. There had been no need. But when morning came, his guards changed and a bowl of foul smelling gruel was passed between the bars of his cage. The guards stood there a moment as Braska slowly stretched his legs and rose shakily from the floor. He looked grim, haggard, and confused. He shuffled over to the bowl and took before retreating to the rear wall again.  
  
"How did he get here?" one guard asked the other.  
  
"Wouldn't tell us." he shrugged. "Might not know."  
  
"He looks alive to me."  
  
"He is."  
  
"How?  
  
"Can't say really, but Lord Nav has had us double our guard on the Farplane. I would imagine he escaped somehow, but he must have had help from the other side."  
  
"Like who?"  
  
"Could've been the whole of dead Yevondom for all I know. Could've been the Fayth."  
  
"You don't say?"  
  
"I merely speculate."  
  
"And his memory?"  
  
"Oh, the Farplane and everyone on it, Gisha! He was dead for a long time. I guess he left it there. Now, come on, we can't stand here and gawk and gab all day. We're supposed to be guarding him."  
  
Braska listened to them without really understanding. He knew that his memory was a mess. That was obvious. But he could not believe them when they suggested that he had been dead. That was rather unbelievable, especially given that fact that he was very much alive as he sat there eating his gruel and nursing several broken ribs. The only question was, what did it all mean? And the answers did not seem to be forthcoming.  
  
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A/N: Thanks, Bunny and Tiffany, for the reviews, which are among some of the nicest I've ever received. And thanks for the most excellent and very constructive critique, klepto-maniac0: "Amazing Auron isn't more bothered by the fact that Pacce, a person he knew as a little boy, and a girl named after him are in the room next to him, having sex..." I've got a lot of answers for that one, but I never want the A/N section to be longer than the chapter. 1. He didn't know Pacce that well, in my opinion, and he understands Aurie. 2. Can you really see Auron breaking it up? 3. After four years in a dorm, there's something incredibly wrong with me (the author). 4. Yeah, maybe you are reading too much into it. Thanks!  
  
  
  



	11. The Stewards of Bevelle

Chapter Eleven  
  
The Stewards of Bevelle  
  
  
Maestress Shelinda and Sir Gatta of the Crusaders met them when they approached the Citadel of Bevelle by way of the Highbridge. Word of their coming had reached the ears of the powerful couple within minutes of the seven setting foot upon the ground. Shelinda no longer looked the part of a naive and lowly acolyte, and Gatta had lost the petulant energy of his youth. They were older, of course, but what surprised Tidus the most was their imposing presence and confidence of demeanor. Their bearing was proud and lofty, but neither arrogant nor conceited.  
  
"Welcome. It has been a long time for some of you." said Shelinda with a slight bow to Auron and Tidus, who were the unofficial leaders of the company.  
  
"You two are in charge?" questioned the blond blitzer, recalling how much trouble Shelinda had been before Operation Mi-hen.   
  
The teachings! The teachings! She was almost as bad as Wakka. No, wait, she was worse. But she had grown up a lot even then. Looking at her in her ceremonial robes, which fluttered in the late morning breeze, he could tell she had matured even more in the intervening years.  
  
Glancing at Gatta, still soldierly in dress and even more battle scarred, he thought much the same thing. The brave and brash boy had grown into a somber, but no less dangerous man, who was surely a commendable warrior and leader.   
  
But it was still difficult to believe that he was her consort. Nevertheless, that was what Pacce had told him as they walked the length of the Highbridge.  
  
"Yes, we are the stewards of Bevelle. I am the leader of the warrior monks, and my husband commands the Crusaders." she replied.  
  
"Great. Then I guess you could tell us where Yuna ... er ... Lady Yuna is, right?" he questioned.  
  
"We cannot answer your question at the moment. You see, though you are renown guardians and saviors of Spira ... you were or are also dead. We must consult the teachings concerning this matter." answered Shelinda.  
  
"But you know us! Well, Auron and me anyway. Can't you just tell us if they've gone to Guadosalam or not?"  
  
"No. Yevon will not accede to the will of the dead. You should understand this." answered Gatta stiffly. "Not even for the sake of friendship." he added, looking away for a moment as though the words came only through a great struggle of will or conscience.  
  
Auron strode forward a pace and said to him, "They could be in grave danger. If you hinder us, it may cost them their lives."  
  
"We do not seek necessarily to hinder you, only to lessen your haste and obey the laws set down by Yevon." said Shelinda, even more adamant than her husband.  
  
"How long?" growled Auron.  
  
The pair exchanged glances before Gatta replied, "Only until tomorrow morning."  
  
"Come on, Auron! We can just go after them ourselves! We know the way." suggested Tidus.  
  
"But what if they are not going to Guadosalam. What if ... they have made other plans? Would you risk it?" asked Auron in frustrated tones.   
  
"No ... I guess not." answered Tidus reluctantly.  
  
Auron glared at Sir Gatta and said, "We will wait for the judgment of Yevon. But I beg you to decide swiftly. The dead do not return for idle reasons."  
  
"To be honest, Sir Auron, I do not think so either. Trouble is brewing in the shrouded city, and I do not doubt that Lady Yuna will be at its center. If it were only my decision, I would ... give you the news that you desire, but other forces are at work." said Sir Gatta with a glance toward the stern Maestress of Yevon at his side.  
  
  
Tidus, as he gazed back across the bridge at Bevelle, had to admit it. It was much prettier when no one was shooting at him. When the others had dispersed, Tida remained with him. Tidus could tell that it was due in part to some silent urging from Auron. Sometimes he was very grateful for the insight the elder guardian had into fatherless children, insight that he had gained from raising him in his own father's absence. That meridian as Tida walked just behind him toward the temple of Bevelle, he was extremely grateful.  
  
"Where are we going?" she asked quietly, speaking to him for the first time since they had left the others behind. For a star blitzer, she certainly didn't seem very sure of herself. But then, how would he have felt in her place?  
  
"The temple. I want to see something." he explained.  
  
"Oh."  
  
Her steps slowed, causing him to look over his shoulder. She was missing the wonderful view of the greatest city in Spira just to look at the ground.  
  
"You are welcome to come along, you know." he assured Tida.  
  
"Thank you." she said as she followed him.  
  
"I got a question for you." he prefaced, causing her to look up.  
  
"When the three of you saw the three of us at the beach on Besaid, how'd you know that we were us?" he asked.  
  
"That's easy. You look just like mom's paintings." she shrugged.  
  
"Yuna paints?"  
  
"Yes, and some people say very well. She painted you and Auron and Jecht ... when you were all reunited inside Sin before the final battle."  
  
"Oh." said Tidus quietly.  
  
"She also painted a picture of you and Auron in Luca from memory and the two of you in ancient Zanarkand from her imagination. There are lots more, but I like the ones of her guardians best. She put more of herself into them."  
  
"Maybe I can see them sometime."  
  
"I think she would like that." agreed Tida as they approached the temple.  
  
  
The temple of Yevon in Bevelle was a somber place. Much of the forbidden machina had been removed in the early days of the Calm and few people ventured there. Tidus made his way through the temple and former cloister of trials with Tida at his heels until he reached the chamber wherein a Fayth had once been housed. The girl, though accustomed to the sacred spaces of Besaid, seemed nervous.  
  
A lone priest, aged and devout, guarded the door to the chamber and stood immovably before it as they approached.  
  
"What business have you in this place, Sir Tidus?" the man questioned as he barred their path.  
  
"I want to see Bahamut, or what's left of him anyway." said Tidus, still not impressed with the trappings of the temple.  
  
"As you wish, good sir, but I do not think you will find anything of him here." said the priest, stepping out of their way without seeming to notice Tida.  
  
As Tidus walked toward the door and it opened with a grinding sound, he turned and asked the priest, "How did you know my name?"  
  
The clergyman merely pointed to a mural on the far wall. It contained an image of a young blond man with a fierce look upon his face who stood among others in the battle against Lord Seymour on the Highbridge. Though a snarling Ronso with a spear, Kimahri, was featured prominently, no figure was painted with greater attention to detail than that of the blond, who was Tidus.   
  
He stared at it for long moments in appreciation and awe before his eyes would leave the painting. Surely this was Yuna's own work. It was amazing. Then he turned again and stepped into the silent and dimly lit chamber that had housed the aeon Bahamut and his Fayth, the boy in the purple hood and robes who had called to him even in Zanarkand. Even from the outside, it seemed empty and still ...  
  
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A/N: Because the last chapter was so short and because everyone has been so extra especially nice today, I've posted two chapters.  
Thank you for the reviews, Summoner Cynthia, Smiggles, and 8462! To answer the various questions and suggestions (which are always warmly received): I don't want to get bogged down in exposition - I like a nice balance of dialog and description, but I will keep your advice in mind, Smiggles. "What chapter will Tidus see Yuna?" Well, 8462, I would tell you, but, you see, ... I don't want to give it away. Sorry! (It isn't soon.)  
  
  
  



	12. Messages

Chapter Twelve  
  
Messages  
  
  
That same morning, though at an earlier hour, a messenger dressed in the uniform of the Crusaders arrived in Besaid with urgent news. The community was normally under the kindly rule of Lady Yuna, who had wielded greater power as a maestress, but loved no duty so well as that of governing her childhood home. When she was in Bevelle, attending to weightier matters, Wakka and Lulu governed jointly because it was their home as well. Suffice it to say that seldom were all the great persons of the village away and for that very reason the messenger, Miro the messenger found himself at the home of Maroda and Lulu where the historian was reviewing his notes on Sir Jecht.  
  
Maroda had no great love of the Crusaders, often the trouble-makers of Spira, which was obvious enough when he opened the door, saw the man in Crusader uniform, and closed the door again. But Miro would not be put off so easily. He had a message to deliver, after all. His persistence paid off as Maroda was finally willing to listen to him after his third attempt.  
  
"I must get news to Lady Yuna." Miro explained.  
  
"She is in Bevelle."  
  
"That may prove grievous for us all, for the Guado are planning something."  
  
"This is not news. Yuna departed on an errand regarding the Guado and their movements some days ago. A party of ... adventurers ... left to follow soon thereafter, apprehensive about the situation."  
  
"For good reason! Our sources say that the Guado have a hostage, possibly a summoner, for whom they will wish Lady Yuna to bargain."  
  
"That is news. Have you the summoner's name?" questioned Maroda, wondering if it were perhaps the aging Lady Dona. He harbored no particular ill will toward the woman, but he was momentarily concerned for her husband Bartello. If she were taken, then he was certainly dead. And would be a great shame.  
  
"No, but they to refer to the summoner as 'he' and there have been no male summoners since the untimely and most unfortunate death of the Lord Isaaru."  
  
"That is a riddle, for who summons in these days when there are no Fayth?"  
  
"Perhaps they mean to say a priest qualified to perform a sending, but they seemed sure of their words."  
  
"Too much secrecy, if you ask me. Can you tell me anything plain?"  
  
"Only that the Guado are planning something and her ladyship seems to be caught in the middle."  
  
  
Tidus stood over the statue in the floor, staring at it in silence and wondering what had really brought him to that shrouded and lifeless chamber. Bahamut, as he had always thought of both boy and aeon, had provided so many answers in the past. Questions too, of course. He had hoped that coming to the temple and seeing what remained of the Fayth's statue would help him make sense of everything somehow. But the aged piece of rock housed beneath his feet did not seem very forthcoming at the moment.  
  
Tida edged forward, watching Tidus stare at the ground, and her initial nervousness began to fade. This room, that statue, they meant something to him. That was quite apparent. The form of stone appeared to be that of a small boy. The robes make him look Zanarkandian, but that couldn't right. He was in Bevelle, and the two places had never been friends.   
  
"Did you know him?"  
  
"Hmmm?" Tidus questioned, brought out of his thoughts by her words.  
  
"Did you know him?" she repeated.  
  
"He ... appeared to me a couple of times."  
  
"Who was he?" she asked, glancing emphatically at the statue under their feet.  
  
"Oh, him, well. He was a Fayth ... one that dreamed of Bahamut the dragon ... and of Zanarkand, my Zanarkand." he explained.  
  
There was a brief flash of light and the world around them seemed to grow still and quiet as a form descended from the dome of the chamber. It was that of a boy in purple robes that hid his face from view and displayed the wide wheel of fate upon his back. He raised his head and chuckled as he looked first at Tidus and then at Tida.  
  
"I knew you would come." he said.  
  
"This isn't possible!" exclaimed Tidus, his voice echoing through the enclosed chamber. "Yuna performed a sending!" he added.  
  
"Tell that to Auron and Jecht." commented the Fayth.  
  
"What do you want? How did you get here?"  
  
"I thought you'd be pleased to see me."  
  
"It's not that." said Tidus. "I am, but I came here looking for answers."  
  
"You will have them ... in time."  
  
"Just tell me this then: why am I here?"  
  
"To save, to protect Yuna and her guardians, to help us, to help the Fayth, rest more peacefully."  
  
"What do I have to do?" asked Tidus, glancing at Tida, who had moved slightly behind him. She seemed afraid.  
  
"That remains to seen."  
  
"Am I ... here for real, for keeps or am I just another one of your dreams?"  
  
The Fayth chuckled again and replied, "You are a real, live boy this time, Tidus, and you can stay that way. Everything can be as it should be." "It all depends on you." he added.  
  
"And you won't tell me how I got here?"  
  
"When the Fayth were alive, we were powerful. When we dreamed, doubly so. In death our power has multiplied again. And ..."  
  
"And?"  
  
"She has dreamed of you, of all four of you, ever since she was a child. And Tida would have been an extremely powerful summoner in our time."  
  
"Wait a minute! Four? Summoner? My daughter?" asked Tidus, raising his voice as the boy Bahamut drifted upward to the ceiling before vanishing and leaving many questions unanswered. Turning to Tida, he simply said, "Try getting a straight answer from a Fayth sometime. Yeesh!" And said no more on the matter while the stood in the chamber.  
  
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A/N: Thanks for the awesome reviews, Summoner Cynthia, Natgoldie, Shido21, Auron_Tidus, Bunny, and sulou! Auron_Tidus: Bahamut was my favorite too, but I don't think there will be any summonings per se ... Bunny: Thanks for your comment about Auron! I'm glad to know that I'm not writing the guy wrong. sulou: Good luck with the exams!  
The next update will be late. My computer is showing signs of breaking down and will be going to the shop tomorrow evening. I am uploading via another computer and a diskette because the DSL is on the fritz.  
  
  



	13. Dusk and dawn in the sacred city

Chapter Thirteen  
  
Dusk and dawn in the sacred city  
  
  
"So how do you think it's going?" Jecht asked Auron as later that day they meandered through a familiar portion of what Bevelle natives had taken to calling 'the old city'.  
  
"I believe Gatta will give us what aid and information we need." Auron answered, glowering at the changes to his city, the city where he had been born and started his training as a warrior monk.  
  
"No! With Tidus and Tida! Didn't you see them walking toward templeville together?" asked Jecht.  
  
"I saw them walking toward the temple, yes."  
  
"Think she's angry with him?"  
  
"No."  
  
"I sure hope he ain't making an ass of himself. Crying an' apologizing, or any of that."  
  
"Tidus has not aged, but he is more mature. Why must I continue to remind you of that, Jecht?"  
  
"Cause he's my son, an' he'll always be seven years old to me." answered Jecht, biting back a slightly more caustic reply. After all, it was difficult, or rather, it had become more difficult for either them to remember that since they left the Farplane.  
  
"They will be fine. Both of them. Tida is strong."  
  
"She must get that from her mother."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Hey! Are you calling my boy a wuss?"  
  
"No." replied Auron in long-suffering tones, thinking, "I can't win ... with either of them."  
  
"You know, it's kind of funny how they were both under your care when Tida was conceived. I thought you were keeping an eye on 'em."  
  
"Are you saying that you wish I had?"  
  
"No, course not. I'm just yanking your chain, like always." said Jecht, stopping and rubbing the back of his neck.  
  
"Stop it."  
  
"Fine, fine. You don't have to get so touchy."  
  
"As you wish ... gramps." said Auron as he walked ahead.  
  
"What did you just call me?" yelled Jecht, dashing after him.  
  
  
Rooms had been set aside for them by sundown, at which time they learned that the discussion concerning their quest was not yet over, much to the dismay of all involved, though perhaps none more so than Tidus. After all, he had been given the task of saving Yuna. That was why he tossed and turned many long hours before settling into a rather fitful slumber, from which he was unfortunately awakened several hours after midnight and several hours before break of day.  
  
The door creaked open, causing him to snap upright in bed and look around.  
  
"Who's there?" he asked, fumbling for his sword.  
  
"It is only Auron."  
  
"News?" he whispered.  
  
"Yes, we must away soon."  
  
"Then they are going to Guadosalam?"  
  
"Yes. They have a twenty-four-hour lead, but they have planned to spend tonight at Lake Macalania. We can catch them, if we hurry." said Auron.  
  
"Great. I'll wake the others."  
  
"No. The younger ones should stay. It won't be safe."  
  
"Since when do you care?"  
  
"Since I found out that you have a daughter. Come on. Jecht is waiting outside." Auron growled impatiently.  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"It is ... for the best." Auron assured Tidus as he began quietly packing up his things.  
  
In the hallway, a silent figure stole back into a nearby room, having overheard their conversation.  
  
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A/N: Well, my computer isn't quite as broken as I thought sigh of relief. A great big thank you to everyone who reviewed: ShadesOfGiada, Summoner Cynthia, and Bunny. To answer a couple of questions. This is not an Aurikku (although when I started, I very much wanted to write one, and failed). Yuna would be 34 or 35, Tidus is still 17, and Auron is ... (I'm guessing) about 34 too. I don't think people would age on the Farplane (because in many cases that would just suck). The Fayth are ... well, on the Farplane (read: dead) but poweful enough to be seen in the world of the living if they wish (or is that too far fetched?).  
  



	14. A family affair

Chapter Fourteen  
  
A family affair  
  
  
Daylight was just beginning to touch the horizon when the trio left Bevelle behind them. It was a misty gray morning through which they trod, with at least one of them, Tidus, having a heavy heart. He had left Tida ... again, and this time it was by choice. If she had not hated him before, he was certain she would after this. Jecht, longer a parent, glanced at the boy and knew what he was thinking, but he did not question the decision. Leaving them behind in the safety of the spiritual capital of Spira had been the right thing to do. She was safe. They were all safe.  
  
As they walked through the cool, blue eaves of Macalania, Auron thought he heard the sound of voices up ahead at the crossroads between Bevelle, the Calm Lands, and the road to the Thunder Plains.  
  
When they reached the crossroads, Auron stopped in his tracks. Tidus slammed into him. And Jecht followed suit.  
  
"What are you doing here?" Auron asked as he stepped forward, glaring at Pacce, Tiron, Aurie, and Tida, all of whom were standing in the middle of the road, waiting for them.  
  
"You know, it was pretty sneaky trying to leave without us, but we can be sneaky too." said Aurie, folding her arms across her chest defiantly. "Thanks to Pacce." she muttered, giving him a light prod in the ribs.  
  
"You should all go back to Bevelle." he told them.  
  
"Aw, come on, Auron. They're already here ..." Jecht started to say, knowing that it was futile to argue with them. They were obviously quite determined.  
  
"And this is a family affair. All of us are a family, or the next best thing." said Tiron forcefully. "And besides, you need us." he added.  
  
"Yeah, seven went out to beat Sin and did it. It's lucky." said Aurie, pressing the advantage.  
  
"And only five came back. Are you sure you like those odds?" questioned Auron more harshly than he intended.  
  
"We are willing to take our chances." said Tiron. The others nodded their agreement.  
  
Auron glanced at Tidus and Jecht and both indicated their somewhat relucant agreement as well. It was a losing battle. They would not be left behind, not even for their own good.  
  
"Fine. We've wasted enough time here. Come along, if you wish." he said with an impatient sigh.  
  
  
As they walked, Pacce and Tiron, uncle and nephew, led the group, talking quietly and observing the unfamiliar flora and fauna of Macalania, which Pacce had not seen in a long time. Jecht, Tidus, and Tida walked together in a silent, familial cluster. Tiron was right in his assertion. There were no better words to describe the matter at hand than a 'family affair'. Auron glanced at the girl who walked by his side. She would have been welcome to trot along with Pacce and Tiron, but she chose to stay with him, almost at his elbow. If she had chosen to do otherwise, he may have felt like an outsider, but somehow it was through her that he was included in this make-shift family.  
  
"Auron, did you want to leave us because we aren't skilled warriors like you are?" she questioned in soft tones, not wishing anyone else to hear.  
  
"That was one reason." he admitted.  
  
"There was more than one?"  
  
"Of course. We wanted all of you to be safe. Tidus and Jecht agreed to leave you behind mostly for that reason."  
  
"And you?"  
  
"Both in equal measure. But do not think I have forgotten what it was like to be young and inexperienced. I would have chafed to be left behind for that reason, but I also would have understood ... and obeyed the wishes of my elders."  
  
They walked in silence for a few minutes as Aurie thought about what he said. She gritted her teeth unhappily. They were both right. Or more frustratingly, he was right. They were all both young and inexperienced, even Pacce really, and it was quite likely that it was in their best interest to have stayed in Bevelle. Although she had the sneaking suspicion that Auron would never have followed his own advice.  
  
"But before this is over, you might need us, ya?" she said questioningly, looking him in the eye.  
  
He chuckled softly and said, "We shall see."  
  
She was certainly Rikku's daughter, whatever else she might be. That much was certain.  
  
  
Just before they reached the beginning of the Thunder Plains, Tidus dropped back and gestured for Aurie to go ahead, that he needed a word with Auron. They slowed their pace and allowed the others to venture ahead of them toward the clearing at the beginning of the wood.  
  
"How far behind are we?" Tidus asked him.  
  
"Not far, I'm sure. If they used the shortcut through the forest, then we may catch up with them, but only if they pause at the Agency."  
  
"If the Agency is still there, you mean."  
  
"Point taken." nodded Auron.  
  
"What if they took the regular route through Macalania?"  
  
"Then we may be hours ahead of them."  
  
"That'd be great."  
  
"And unlikely too. Can you imagine Wakka or Lulu taking the long way around?"  
  
"No, I can't." admitted Tidus.  
  
"How goes it with your daughter?" Auron questioned out of the blue, obviously considering the other matter closed.  
  
"Oh, well, she seems ... shy." stammered Tidus.  
  
"It isn't easy for her, you know."  
  
"Yeah, I kind of get the idea." said Tidus, looking for a moment uncommonly like his father in his obvious discomfort.  
  
"Give it time."  
  
"I only wish ..." he began, stopping mid-sentence and shaking his head.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Nothing." said Tidus, thinking of the words of the boy Fayth:  
  
"It all depends on you."  
  
Those words seemed ominous somehow.  
  
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A/N: Thanks (as always) for the great reviews Jade, Summoner Cynthia, sulou, and Lexa Raye! Jade (ShadesOfGiada) asked: "So Braska is (about) the same age as Yuna?" Yes, I think she would be, but the game doesn't really give very many clues about his age when he died.  
  
  
  
  



	15. A different sort of family

Chapter Fifteen  
  
A different sort of family ...  
  
  
It was always cool and peaceful in the small anteroom of the Citadel of Bevelle where Sir Gatta of the Crusaders spent many of his unoccupied hours in contemplation. He was seldom disturbed there in the room wherein hung one of Lady Yuna's best paintings. It was of Sir Jecht, Sir Auron, and her father, painted from her childhood memories of them, few though they were. And in this room his mind turned many directions and his thoughts were often heavy as he recalled the years before the Calm that Yuna had brought them: the pain and the sacrifice, the fear and the death unending, but most of all, the loyalty and the devotion that guardians and summoners had for one another. It was a bond unbreakable, even by time or by death.  
  
As Sir Gatta knelt before the painting in the early hours of the morning, the clatter of footsteps roused him from his thoughts, but he did not turn or stand. The only sign that he gave that he heard those footfalls was that he raised his head slightly and drew a deep breath.  
  
"Gatta." spoke a clear and strident feminine voice from the antechamber entrance behind him. It was not a question nor a call. "You have disobeyed a decree of Yevon."  
  
"I know, Shelinda." he replied.  
  
"You certainly must. You signed the article on behalf of the Crusaders. You agreed with its principles too, if I remember correctly. You believed that the dead could never again be allowed to decide the fate of Yevon or of Spira. And so did Lady Yuna."  
  
"But I do think they are dead. And I certainly do not believe that she meant for the article to apply to those three men. Additionally, Sir Auron gave me his word to return to Bevelle for judgment when their duties are done. No harm has been done here."  
  
"It does not matter, Gatta. The Maesters of Yevon made their decision in support of the article, and you have disobeyed them." she said firmly.  
  
"Then you have a duty to perform." said Gatta calmly, rising from his knees and turning to face her. As he looked at Shelinda silhouetted in the doorway with the morning sunlight all around her, he could scarcely find fault with her, save perhaps that she was a little hard of heart.  
  
"I know. And in the name of Yevon I have come here to place you under arrest." she said, beckoning toward the door, through which two figures immediately emerged. One was a Crusader cadet of no more than fourteen summers. The other was a warrior monk. "Will you come willingly, Sir Gatta?" she asked.  
  
"Yes, I submit to your authority in this matter, Maestress Shelinda." said Gatta with a slight bow.  
  
The two guards, who were to escort him to a cell in the vast, though mostly unused dungeons of Bevelle, stepped forward, one upon either side of him.  
  
"Luzzu." said Sir Gatta, acknowledging the cadet at his side.  
  
"Father." the boy replied curtly.  
  
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A/N: Thanks for the reviews, sulou, dragontamer1012002, 8462, Summoner Cynthia, Sayiera, and Shido21! About the romance ... It was kind of difficult to nail down the genre when I first began posting ... But it will get more romantic in a few chapters. I always try to answer questions (at least when it won't give anything away).  
  
  



	16. The history of the conflict

Chapter Sixteen  
  
The history of the conflict  
  
  
Waking up in the morning was a frightening experience for him. He knew where he was, though not why he was there. But Lord Braska felt a sense of being out of place, a sense of belonging somewhere else, possibly in one of two somewhere else's: somewhere shadowy and remote and somewhere warm and familiar. The feeling was not a pleasant one, compounded by the fact that he was in neither place, but rather in a dank and cheerless cell that was at all times guarded by two strange and hostile beings.  
  
He had been dreaming, awakened only by the sound of the changing of the guard. He had been following someone down a long and perilous road. The memories were slowly beginning to return, but they were distorted or without context. It was almost maddening. But ever-present were two figures: a young man dressed in a robe of red and an older man with darker skin and tattoos. To them he attached the word 'guardians', and yet he could not understand why they had been with him.  
  
He could feel the eyes of the two guards upon him as he mulled over his dreams and pieced his broken memory back together.  
  
"Looks like he could use feeding." commented one of them.  
  
"How often do these humans eat?" asked the other.  
  
"Suppose they eat every day, like we do." he shrugged.  
  
"I'd best fetch him some gruel then. Keep an extra sharp eye out while I'm gone, Gisha."  
  
"Right." he nodded, leaning against the bars of the cell.  
  
Braska raised his eyes from the floor and looked up at the Guado who was watching him.  
  
"How long will I be here?" questioned Braska.  
  
"That rather depends."  
  
"On ... what?"  
  
"Well, how soon your daughter gets here, what kind of terms our Lord Nav gives her, and whether or not she takes them."  
  
"She is coming here ... for me ... then?"  
  
"Not exactly. She was coming already to discuss matters with our leader. You're just a bonus, I suppose you could say." shrugged Gisha.  
  
"What is this all about?" asked Braska.  
  
"Goes back to the days of Lord Seymour. The humans, mostly the Yevonites, killed a lot of our people. My father for one. He died protecting Lord Seymour at Macalania Temple. There weren't a lot of us left when the Calm began, but Nav he gathered us all together again and promised that we'd see the day when the Guado - that's us - would rule from Lake Macalania to Djose. I guess he's making good on that promise now." said Gisha, speaking rapidly and with some excitement.  
  
"Then your Lord Nav is seeking power?"  
  
"An' glory. Don't forget about the glory."  
  
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A/N: Thanks for the reviews, Jade, Summoner Cynthia, Trixie, and Skies of Blue! Jade (ShadesOfGiada) wanted to know: "Are Shelinda and Gatta together?" That would a yes. It's mentioned in Chapter 11. Trixie asked: "You mean that Luzzu is Gatta's father?! Or the other way around...hmm". Gatta (and Shelinda) named their son after Luzzu, the Crusader from Besaid who died at Operation Mi'hen. As it seems that I have had a minor to moderate pronoun problem, the previous chapter has been slightly editted.  
  
  



	17. Everyone named for someone dead

Chapter Seventeen  
  
Everyone named for someone dead  
  
  
The group paused at the beginning of the Thunder Plains, Macalania entrance, and began changing their equipment to best suit their environment. Aurie glanced at Auron, leaning on his sword and waiting impatiently, as she drew a rather nice yellow bracer from her bag. She turned over in her hands a couple of times before offering it to Auron.  
  
"Here. You should probably put it on, unless you have better." she suggested.  
  
"Where did you get this?" he asked, taking it from her.  
  
"You and Tidus both left some stuff behind. Our parents gave us a few pieces of equipment and stuff as heirlooms. I wear it sometimes. It helps with the Blitzer's Elbow."  
  
"If it is an heirloom ..." Auron began to say, holding the bracer out to her.  
  
"No, it's yours, and you might need it."  
  
Auron removed the diamond bracer from his arm and replaced it with the yellow one. He pressed the one he had been wearing into her hands.  
  
"This is yours then, until I can return this one to you." he told her.  
  
Aurie held it in her hands for a moment, surprised at the weight of the bracer and keenly aware of its worth both as armor and a material possession. Then she snapped it into place.  
  
"Wait 'til Tida gets a load of this!" she said with a giggle, holding her arm out and looking at the bracer.  
  
"Doesn't she have a bracer too?" chuckled Auron.  
  
"Um, no, she has one of Tidus's shields, a recovery one, I think."  
  
"And Tiron?"  
  
She nodded toward him and said, "He's wearing his."  
  
The boy was fastening a bracer on that was obviously too large for his arm.  
  
"I don't recognize it." said Auron.  
  
"Well, we do have a limited amount of lightning gear, brudda." she laughed. "He actually has a couple of bracers, but as far as I know he only brought a well-worn seeker's bracer." Aurie added.  
  
"Do you place much value in these things?" questioned Auron, glancing at the bracer on his own arm.  
  
"Tida does. But she almost never wears it. Sort of sacred to her, ya?"  
  
"And yours?"  
  
"Aw, don't embarrass me!" she giggled, scuffing her foot against the dusty ground. Auron leveled his gaze at her, but said nothing. "Fine. Yeah, I suppose they do mean something to me too." she finally admitted.  
  
"Strange." he commented. "Now let's go."  
  
  
The fiends of the Thunder Plain were no match for Tidus, Auron, and Jecht, the three of whom handled most of the fighting, despite Tida and Tiron's insistence that they could fight too. Pacce and Aurie were less enthused, especially when they caught their first glimpse of an iron giant. But the encounters were relatively few, a testimony to the days of peace that Spira had been experiencing. It was not long before they reached the Agency.  
  
Auron approached the counter of the deserted, sleepy pit-stop in the plains where an Al-Bhed teenager sat chewing gum and reading a magazine.  
  
"I am looking for someone." he told her.  
  
She looked up from her magazine and sighed, "Do you want a room or maybe some items?"  
  
"No, I am seeking information." he responded.  
  
She pointed toward a dusty blue stand in the corner.  
  
Auron was about to say something loud and caustic when he felt someone tugging at his sleeve.  
  
"Let me try." said Aurie quietly.  
  
"Very well." he agreed.  
  
Aurie leaned across the counter and asked in her friendliest voice and her best Al-Bhed, "Ynah'd oui Keyakku'c luicer?" _Aren't you Keyakku's cousin?_  
  
The girl beamed and put her magazine aside as she answered, "Oac! Tu oui Ghuf res?" _Yes! Do you know him?_  
  
"Cina. Oui'na ..." said Aurie, squinting as though trying to remember her name. _Sure. You're ..._  
  
"Aeku, Cemmo!" _Aeku, silly!_  
  
"Oayn, ra cyet oui fana luum!" _Yeah, he said you were cool!_  
  
Aeku giggled and said, "Cina ra tet!" _Sure he did!_  
  
"Lyh oui ramb ic?" _Can you help us?_  
  
"Yna oui fedr dryd nita kia?" _Are you with that rude guy?_  
  
"Gehty ..." _Kinda._  
  
Aeku had to think about it, but she finally said, "Okay. What do you need?"  
  
"Have you seen Lady Yuna?" Aurie asked her.  
  
"Sure. She came through about an hour ago, maybe two. Three other people were with her. They looked around and left, heading toward Guadosalam, I think. They bought some stuff, like stuff to prepare for a fight." she explained.  
  
"Thanks. We appreciate it." said Aurie.  
  
Auron made a small, unpleasant sound and headed for the door. Everyone looked pretty grim. There was no way they could beat them to Guadosalam if Yuna had a two-hour head start.  
  
As they started back down the road through the Thunder Plains Auron asked Aurie, "Do you really know her cousin?"  
  
"No, of course not."  
  
"Then how did ...?"  
  
"Come on. Keyakku? It's a pretty common name."  
  
For a moment Auron thought of Rikku's friend who had died when the Guado stormed Home.  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yeah. But you know what they say. Everyone is named for someone who's dead. It's the final legacy of Sin." shrugged Aurie, understanding his unspoken question.  
  
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A/N: Thanks for reviewing, Rinny Leonhart, Natgoldie, Trixie, bunny, and Evil Neko! It's always great to know that people are enoying the story.  
I hope my Al-Bhed is up to par. I thought I should translate it (hence the words in italics).  
  
  
  



	18. It all comes together

Chapter Eighteen  
  
It all comes together  
  
  
They had expected to encounter resistance at the entrance to the city of Guadosalam, but there was no guard at the path that connected the city to the plains beyond. Auron and Tidus with Jecht not far behind had taken the lead and cautiously led them into Guadosalam, which had not grown so much as Luca or even Besaid. Tidus could hear the sound of many voices coming from the direction of the great manor of the Guado lords. For an instant he wanted nothing more than to run in the direction of those voices. Then he glanced at Auron, who shook his head and nodded toward one of the upward curving pathways, which would give them a vista of the city square before the manor entrance.   
  
They led the way stealthily, indicating to the four youngest members of their party to keep quiet and to have their weapons ready. The view was one for which none of them were prepared.  
  
On one side stood a crowd of heavily armed Guado, perhaps fifteen or more of them, and on the other stood Yuna, Wakka and Rikku, and Lulu. Yuna, thirty-four years old and still unsurpassingly beautiful, was just standing there with her Nirvana summoning rod clutched tightly in her hands, staring at something. At first Tidus thought that it was one of the Guado, perhaps even Nav himself, but then the crowd shifted, affording him a better view of a figure at their center, a man in chains with a formidable Guado warrior on either side.  
  
"It's ... It's Braska!" Tidus stammered.  
  
The expression on Yuna's face captured it all: the seven-year-old girl who had lost her father, the teenager who had defeated Sin forever, and the grown woman who had led her people into a new age. And they were all astonished and a little terrified to see Lord Braska there, alive and a captive of the Guado.  
  
"We got to do something!" said Jecht quietly, nudging Auron.  
  
"Right." he agreed. "At least one or more of us must distract the enemy while others get word to Yuna that she has help. The rest need to be prepared to cover their escape ... with Braska."  
  
"I'll do the distractin' part." said Jecht, testing the edge of his sword.  
  
"It will be dangerous." Auron warned him, glancing at Tidus.  
  
"You don't think I can handle some Guado? I'll even have surprise on my side." said Jecht, never one to back down.  
  
"Send me with him, Sir Auron. He'll need someone to watch his back." said Pacce, swallowing hard as he finally found some courage.  
  
"Count me in too!" said Tidus.  
  
"Fine. Tiron and Aurie will inform Yuna of our plans, leaving Tida and me to cover the retreat." agreed Auron, though reluctantly.  
  
"Now that's what I call a plan!" laughed Jecht, clapping Auron on the back.  
  
  
The spokesman for the Guado had just finished giving Yuna the terms and conditions laid down by Lord Nav. She was struggling to find something to say. Usually both a shrewd and fair negotiator, the sight of her father was more than her steely nerves could take. She wanted to ask them what he was doing there. She wanted to tell them that they had no right to hold a Yevonite hostage. She wanted even more just to accede to their demands and see him set free. But worst of all, the leering Guado could see it all in her varicolored eyes as clearly as though every thought were written there.  
  
Of course, she didn't have a chance to say or do any of that as three figures catapulted themselves from one of the high, arching pathways nearby and straight into the center of the mob of Guado.  
  
"Mom! Aunt Yuna!" called Tiron to the lady summoner and the black mage at her side as both Aurie and he ran up from the other direction.  
  
They turned without hesitation, all of them, hearing the last voices, or perhaps almost the last voices, that they expected to hear in Guadosalam.  
  
"We've got get Lord Braska and get out of here!" said Aurie breathlessly.  
  
Wakka surveyed the situation and nodded once as he said, "Right! Let's do it!"  
  
"Stay with Yuna." Rikku told Tiron and Aurie as the three guardians prepared to plunge into battle.  
  
"But mom ...!" Aurie began to object.  
  
"Protect her." said Wakka fiercely, leaving no room for any additional objections.  
  
Lady Yuna brushed her hair from her eyes as she looked at the two teenagers. The single dignifying streak of gray glimmered like burnished silver in the pale light of Guadosalam.  
  
"Did I just see ... Sir Tidus ... Sir Jecht ... and Pacce?" she questioned them slowly. The day had already been too much for her. What was a couple more surprises?  
  
"Yeah ... and I guess you saw your father too, ya?" answered Aurie.  
  
"Yes." Yuna nodded.  
  
"Long story." said Tiron with a nonchalant shrug.  
  
  
The battle was fine, a piece of cake, until the Guado began calling fiends to assist them, just as they had in the old days. Jecht, Pacce, and Tidus were holding their own, but desperately wishing that they had Lulu, Wakka, and Auron with them, not to mention Yuna and her curative magic. Then Tidus heard a familiar voice call out to him over the din of the battle.  
  
"Hey, brudda, is this for real?"  
  
"Wakka?" he yelled back.  
  
Tidus glimpsed a flash of gray-streaked red hair as the guardians of Yuna joined the fight. Sometimes wishes come true. Tidus grinned and continued hacking at his foe, glad to have the additional support. The former blitzer obviously still had it as he hurled his weapon at the nearest fiend. Wakka grinned and gave Tidus a thumbs-up as the fiend exploded into pyreflies with a very satisfying sound.  
  
"You couldn't stay away for long ... hmmm?" questioned a soft, amused voice, struggling to be heard over the surrounding noise.  
  
"Lulu!" Tidus laughed aloud as a nearby Guado was hit with a potent Firaga spell. It was none other than his favorite black mage. The gleam in her brilliant red eyes suggested that it had been a long time since she lit a Guado on fire, which, as always, had a particular appeal to any mage.  
  
"Don't forget me!" laughed a voice that was still energetic and familiar after all the intervening years since he had heard it last.  
  
"Rikku!" shouted Tidus, waving to her with his sword as she cut her way through the weaker fiends with grenades and other items. Rikku looked a little taller and maybe not so skinny, but she still wore the latest in Al-Bhed fashions, though mostly in the colors of pink and green. And true to the advice given by Kimahri Ronso beneath Lake Macalania, she was still Rikku.  
  
Jecht and Pacce, who was being severely put through his paces, both just grinned as Tidus's friends cut their way through both fiend and Guado to join them in forming a protective circle around Lord Braska, who seemed rather dazed. The High Summoner had hardly moved since the battle began. He simply stood there with his wide eyes upon Jecht, and he seemed to be remembering something, or rather, he was remembering everything ... at last.  
  
  
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A/N: Thanks for the reviews, bunny and sulou!  
  
  



	19. Blood, tears, and pyreflies

Chapter Nineteen  
  
Blood, tears, and pyreflies  
  
  
Auron and Tida remained on the arching path that overlooked the battle, uncertain whether the retreat would be conducted in the direction of the Thunder Plains or toward the Moonflow. It wouldn't do for them to be caught on the wrong side of their foes. To Auron, as he watched the former guardians, older, though no less powerful or determined, as they dashed headlong into the conflict, just shook his head. They weren't supposed to make a stand. This was a rescue, not a pitched battle with all of the Guado in Spira.  
  
"I'm going down there." he told Tida, hefting his blade.  
  
"Not without me you're not!" she protested.  
  
"Fine." he agreed. Auron was not going to leave her up there alone. "Stay close." he ordered, taking off down the path in hopes of striking the Guado from behind.  
  
Tida was hard pressed to keep up with his long strides, but she managed, gritting her teeth in preparation for a good fight. Her knuckles were white as she gripped Brotherhood, wondering absently if the sword were lucky. Even though she had never fought non-fiends or even fiends so powerful as those called by the Guado, she wasn't afraid. She felt ready.  
  
  
The fighting was thick in the center of Guadosalam as two more warriors burst into the fray. Even Yuna, Tiron, and Aurie were defending themselves against the outer fringe of the fighting. The lady summoner was casting powerful Curaga spells on the other members of the group, but the fighting was growing ugly rather quickly as the Guado mages began berserking the monsters and even a few of their own soldiers. They had no intention of allowing Yuna, Braska, or anyone else to get away from their clutches.  
  
But then something turned the tide. Auron, a masterful tactician, and Tida, full of the fearlessness of youth, began to seek out the captains of the Guado, striking down the leaders with the idea that the others might rout if left without their leaders. It was a brilliant plan and seemed to be working.  
  
Then as they moved closer to the center of the fighting, something caught Tida's eye. A slender, robed figure slipped quietly into the nearby manse and closed the door, escaping unnoticed into its relative safety. This was the Guado who had started all the trouble. No way was she going to let him get away. For a moment Tida felt her face burn and her hands tremble in rage.  
  
"Nav!" she breathed through gritted teeth, taking off in the direction of the door just as Auron delivered a killing blow to another pitiless Guado foe.   
  
In an instant, it seemed, she had reached the door and pried it open with her sword.  
  
Standing in the foyer of the great residence was Lord Nav Guado, distant cousin of Lord Seymour and former blitzball star. His repulsive face was expressionless as he looked at the girl in the doorway, striding purposefully toward him. Nav pulled a nondescript staff from within the folds of his robes and chuckled.  
  
"You are the champion they have sent to face me? Or are you merely some callow girl who does not know to mind her own affairs? In either case I will still permit you to flee, if you so choose." he told Tida with a cold sneer.  
  
"I do not choose to do so." she growled, holding out her sword and approaching him.  
  
"But you cannot hope to defeat me alone!" he laughed.  
  
"She is not alone!" came the sound of a rough and angry voice from behind her.  
  
Tida glanced over her shoulder to find that Auron had followed her into the manor. The door was thrown wide, and he seemed to fill its frame. His wrath was no less potent and consuming than her own.  
  
"Oh, are you this child's protector? Tsk ... tsk. You should keep a closer eye on her. Or she may be hurt." chortled Nav, raising his staff.  
  
Something in the words or perhaps the gesture snapped Auron out of his seething rage. He suddenly felt very cold as he looked at Tida and the rather powerful Guado lord standing before them, prepared to do battle. It was foolishness! It was absolute foolishness to allow her to face him. Auron strode forward until he was shoulder to shoulder with Tida.  
  
"Run." he said quietly and calmly in her ear.  
  
"No!" she said as Nav began a series of complicated motions with his staff, no doubt signaling that he was going on the offensive.  
  
Auron could tell that whatever the Guado was brewing, he intended to use it on Tida, taking out the weaker of his challengers first.  
  
"You must. Remember Yunalesca. Remember what I tried to teach you." said Auron, stepping in front of her.  
  
"He's going to do sentinel for me!" thought Tida, her blood running a few degrees cooler as she recognized the technique and realized what was happening.  
  
"Now." growled Auron.  
  
Tida turned and began to run for all she was worth, hoping that Auron would also flee if he found the chance. She looked over her shoulder just in time to see the Guado strike Auron with his staff. It was a powerful blow, taking Auron nearly to his knees. But then the former guardian did something unexpected. He initiated a counterattack so powerful that Nav was nearly torn in half by the blow before he landed with a sickening crunch against the far wall. For a brief instant, Tida lingered in the doorway, believing that Auron, though wounded, had defeated his foe.  
  
Then the Guado, gasping his last breath, lifted his head and began to cast Ultima. It required every ounce of speed and agility Tida possessed to leap from the doorway and outside before deadly flash of light consumed both Auron and the dying Lord Nav. Tida squeezed her eyes shut as she felt the awesome heat of the spell diminish and end.  
  
"Auron?" she whispered, walking back into the manor. Tida could no longer hear the sounds of battle just outside, only her own heartbeat in her ears. "Auron?" she called a second time, though more loudly. The smoke and darkness were just beginning to clear. Her throat tightened as no answer came. Then she saw the red of his robe. She saw him. "Auron." she choked, rushing as fast as her shaking legs would carry her toward the figure of the guardian, who lay upon the floor of the manor.  
  
His sword had slipped from his nerveless fingers, and the bracer upon his arm had cracked and split asunder. But there was no blood and hardly a mark upon him. Perhaps only the faint sulfurous scent of magic left by the perilous spell told the tale that he was wounded and horribly so, not merely a man at rest.  
  
Kneeling upon the warm stone of the floor, Tida gently unfastened his collar and removed his glasses with trembling fingers that scarcely seemed to work properly. At loss as to where to lay his sky blue spectacles, she slipped them on. Something wet touched their rims. It required a moment for her to realize that the something was tears. Then she gathered his heavy form into her arms, tenderly running her fingers through his softly graying hair.  
  
"Auron?" she whimpered, no longer the proud warrior and blitzer who had charged the leader of the Guado head on, but rather nothing more or less than the teenage girl she was in body and spirit.  
  
He opened his eyes slightly and smiled. Most of the pain was gone, its teeth blunted by his nearness to death. His heart fluttered as he looked up at Tida. If he could have moved, he would have wiped her tears away, but all of his former strength was gone and his limbs felt heavy.  
  
"The foe was not too great this time, it seems." he said very quietly.  
  
"No." she agreed. "I ... I don't know what I can do for you. I don't have any potions, and ... and I don't know any healing spells." she said, sniffing between words as she tried to halt the flow of tears. She wanted nothing more than to be strong for him.  
  
"It is all right. I know why I was brought here now ... why I had another chance." he said in a calm and reassuring voice. "To be a guardian to you ... as I was to your grandfather ... and your mother ... and perhaps ... a better one." Auron told her, his coppery brown eyes closing slowly. "Tell Tidus ... and Jecht ... to go to Bevelle." he whispered, drifting away even as he spoke.  
  
Tida's sobs were silent ones as she continued to hold the dying guardian close. A few pyreflies began to flutter up and through the vaulted roof of the great house, slowly and peacefully finding their way back to the Farplane.  
  
  
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A/N: Thanks for the reviews, Trixie, Bunny, Starla, sulou, Shido21, and Lynx! And a special thanks for pointing my error in the previous chapter goes to Shido21. (That was the lake bottom, wasn't it?)  



	20. It all depends on you

Chapter Twenty  
  
"It all depends on you"  
  
  
Tida did not hear the footfalls, though they were not few, as others entered the quiet manor. She only raised her eyes when she heard a familiar, gentle, and forceful voice speak.  
  
"Father, can you save him?" questioned Lady Yuna, too exhausted, too spent from the battle to cast even one more spell of healing.  
  
Yuna and her father, whose memories had returned to him, stood before Tida. The lady summoner's eyes were full of concern, but Braska's were full of a strange mix of wonder and tears as he looked upon the fading form of his oldest and truest friend and comrade. He was ever astonished, even after the years spent together on the Farplane, by how old his former guardian seemed. And yet, the look upon Auron's age-worn face seemed to be a peaceful one. The expression stripped away many years and much hardship, which might had otherwise rendered Auron difficult to recognize, even in the eyes of his friend.  
  
To their immediate right stood Rikku with her husband's arms around her shoulders. The face of the Al-Bhed woman was filled with anguish and grief, though she seemed weary still from the fighting outside. Had she not seen brave Sir Auron go to pyreflies once before? Surely that had been a great sadness, one that should not be endured twice in the same lifetime. But she did not even glance away. Behind her, Wakka looked grim and pale, and his hair seemed more heavily streaked with gray than when the battle began. The strain of it all was beginning to tell on him. He just wasn't young anymore, no matter how it felt when he rushed into battle again.  
  
Close at hand were the young lovers, also arm in arm, close and inseparable. Tears ran down Pacce's face as he clutched Aurie even more tightly. The victory that he, that they all, had earned just outside was turning to ashes. It was nothing if their champion lost his life to help give it to them. Aurie buried her face in Pacce's shoulder and squeezed her eyes closed, not wanting to witness the last moments of gruff, but kindly Auron who had secretly wept in the temple in Besaid. And yet she wished that she could comfort her weeping cousin, fated to know him perhaps best of the three youths and to be with him in the end.  
  
On the other side of the rough semi-circle stood Tiron and his mother, a black mage slowly diminishing to gray, though still formidable in every sense of the word. Their eyes of glowing red gleamed with tears, and not even Lulu bothered to hide them. It was Spiran justice, warped and unhappy, that had brought them there to see Auron die a second death, though perhaps no second sending would be called upon. Perhaps he would go peacefully this time. Lulu of all those present knew that Yuna would not be able to bear it easily after such an exhausting battle. Young Tiron, as stoic as his mother and as strong as his father, merely stood there, a bit dizzy perhaps, as he stared in mute horror at Tida and Auron. It was a scene he never expected to see. His mother had told him the story of Auron's demise, but Tiron had never imagined that he would witness it for himself as the event played out for a second time under different circumstances.  
  
But still two others filled the manor of Guadosalam with their presence. Father and son stood side by side. Jecht kept a gentle, restraining hand upon the boy's shoulder. He thought he could see what Auron meant to Tida, who had been robbed of her birth father, half orphaned, and then befriended by someone equal to the task of filling the void, only to lose him after few days. It was cruel. Fate was cruel. But Jecht would not let anyone steal those precious last moments from her, not even her real father.   
  
Tidus on the other hand yearned to go to her, to comfort the girl that he had come to considered his daughter and loved as such in as much as he knew how. And yet, his stomach lurched too as his eyes rested on the form of his dying comrade in arms, his adopted father whom he had loved as a child far more than the man who had taunted and later abandoned him. He had never admitted it to Jecht or to Auron, but he had once wished as a teenager that Auron had been his real father, even if it would have meant that he could never have been a star blitzball player, that he wouldn't have inherited the talent.  
  
Stillness and silence filled the hall before Yuna asked again, "Father, can anything be done? Can you save Sir Auron?"  
  
"I ... I can try." he answered solemnly, squeezing her shoulder and stepping forward.  
  
Tida could not master the sobs that wracked her body as she continued to hold the only half visible body of Auron close. Her eyes, shining like stars through panes of blue glass, were fearful as she looked up at Lord Braska, who clutched his daughter's summoning rod in his hands.  
  
He looked down at the girl and tried to smile for her sake as he spun the instrument in his hands, casting the first spell that came to mind: Full-life. She looked much like his daughter, and perhaps a little bit like her grandmother as well, though her face was so marred by her tears that it was difficult to say for certain.  
  
Tida closed her eyes as she felt the warmth of the strongest healing spell wash over them both. It was even more potent in the hands of someone such as High Summoner Braska. She felt Auron grow heavier in her arms and draw a slow, deep breath. He opened his one good eye and smiled his slight and enigmatic smile again as he sat up and looked around.  
  
"My lord?" he questioned as he saw Braska, leaning upon the staff and scrutinizing him carefully.  
  
"It was a near thing, but ... I think you will be fine." said Braska. There was relieved laughter in his normally solemn and brooding eyes.  
  
"It was strange, my lord, being for a moment equally here and equally upon the Farplane." he said, rising slowly and giving Tida a hand up as well. A keen observer could have caught something uncomfortable in his eyes as he did so, his gaze lingering upon her for a long moment. But the discomfort passed as he laid his gloved hand upon her trembling shoulder. She seemed dazed, though perhaps no worse for wear.  
  
"Strange, Auron?" prompted Braska.  
  
"A Fayth ... he was a Fayth. The one that ... appeared to Tidus, I believe. And Tida as well ... He said to give her a message." said Auron, thinking very hard as the images of the Farplane became illusive.  
  
"Me?" questioned Tida uncertainly.  
  
Auron chuckled and leaned close to her before saying softly in her ear, "You did well. He - the Fayth - said that he knew that he could depend on you."  
  
Tida looked at him in surprise, never once imagining that those words, "It all depends on you.", were meant not for Tidus, but for her.  
  
"Then this ... you and me ... and Lord Nav? He knew?"  
  
Auron leaned away from her and nodded slowly.  
  
"This was the best that any of us could have hoped for. That someone had to lead the charge ... And that someone was you. Without you ... who knows what tragedies might have occurred here today."  
  
"Wow." said Tida, shaking her head to clear it of all the mind boggling ideas about fate, chance, and destiny that had suddenly entered.   
  
The Fayth had known that she would rush Nav ... and that Auron, the only one strong enough, the only other with so much courage and so much more tactical knowledge, would run instantly and selflessly to her defense, thereby thwarting even the strongest of the Guado lord's techniques, though without Braska there to heal him, it would have cost Auron his life. So much could have gone wrong, but it didn't.  
  
"Wow." she repeated.  
  
"Indeed." Auron agreed with a low chuckle. He looked around at the others for a moment before stooping and picking up his discarded collar. "Let's go. Trouble may be waiting for us in Bevelle." he said, becoming suddenly more gruff and Auron-like as he realized that everyone was staring at him.  
  
"When isn't it?" laughed Tidus.  
  
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A/N: Thanks for reviewing, Lizzy, sulou, Bunny, and Lynx! Did anyone seriously think I was going to kill off Auron? Really! The thing that got me started writing this story was the fact that I didn't really like Auron dying/ being sent (or Tidus evaporating) at the end of the game.  
  
Due to circumstances beyond my control, namely the technical problems with logging on that I have been experiencing for almost two days now, this update is a bit late. But on the positive side, it did give me time to edit a little more thoroughly and work on the exposition/ non-dialog portions of this chapter.  
  
  
  



	21. Time and timing

Chapter Twenty-One  
  
Time and timing  
  
  
The close call in Guadosalam put everyone on their guard as the massive entourage began the long walk back to spiritual center of Spira. It was very awkward for Tidus, who had the distinct feeling that Yuna was avoiding him, though she occasionally glanced at him when she thought he wasn't looking. He was doing the same thing, but in a somewhat less obvious fashion. One thought kept occurring to him for the duration of that first march:  
  
"Thank Yevon! She's still pretty."  
  
For the others, it was certainly less awkward. For Braska and his granddaughter, it could be said that the walk through an almost fiend-free Thunder Plains was rather pleasant. She caught him up on the current events of Spira, blitzball, Yuna's illustrious career, and the goings on everywhere from Zanarkand to Besaid. And Braska was quite pleased to hear all of it, because even though his memories had returned, he was still quite out of touch with modern day Spira and all of the nuances thereof. Auron, marching unobtrusively at his side, was pleased to listen as well, which was a good thing as Tida spoke nearly nonstop from Guadosalam to the Agency, where they stopped for a well-deserved, well-earned good night's sleep. Whether her behavior was a side-effect of the Full-life spell or mere nervousness, Auron could not tell.  
  
  
There was no talk of hurrying to Bevelle or even of getting an early start as they paid for their rooms, which despite the expansion of the Agency, were too few to accommodate their number comfortably. Surprisingly, few arguments arose as arrangements were made. Jecht and Tidus split a double room near the front of the Agency with Pacce and Aurie just across the hall, her parents next door, and Lulu and her son nearby. Yuna and Braska were given the suite at the end of the hall in deference to their rank while Auron and Tida squeezed into smaller quarters close by.  
  
As soon as the door closed behind Jecht and Tidus, the younger of the familial pair began to pace.  
  
"I have to see her." Tidus stated, more to himself than to Jecht, who was already lounging on one of the beds.  
  
"Nah, Tida has some stuff she needs to work out. It can wait until morning." Jecht told him.  
  
"No, Yuna. I need to see Yuna."  
  
"Well ... yeah, I suppose you do." agreed Jecht, but Tidus was already out the door.  
  
He passed Braska in the hallway. The former summoner smiled at him and squeezed his shoulder in passing, almost as though he knew Tidus's errand and was wishing him luck. Braska felt nothing but respect for the young man who had helped his daughter to defeat Sin. He knew that Tidus was her truest guardian and perhaps the love of her life.  
  
Tidus couldn't help but to fidget a little as he knocked on the door and waited for her answer. He tried rehearsing what he was going to say to her, but he couldn't even begin to string the words together:  
  
"Sorry ... my daughter ... yours ... ours ... yours ... Tida. Us ... about us ... and, you see, I ... that is, we. Time ... the thing with that ... I ... we ... need to ... should ... no, it's like this ... Let me start again. Sorry ..." And that was his best attempt at a beginning to what he was certain would be a difficult conversation.  
  
Then he heard Yuna's soft voice call, "Come in."  
  
She was standing at the window, gazing at the eternally cloudy weather outside, almost admiring it. Yuna turned as he softly closed the door behind himself. Her eyes, one blue and the other green, studied him for seconds that turned into what felt like forever. Then she looked away.  
  
"Yuna?" questioned Tidus.  
  
"You are still so young. You are exactly as you were when you left Spira, when you left me. I must ask you, Tidus, am I dreaming again? Will I wake up tomorrow and find that I have only dreamed of you a second time?" she questioned, her voice trembling.  
  
"No, it isn't like that this time." he said, stepping toward her.  
  
Yuna moved away and sat down on the end of the nearest bed. She was tired, very tired, and seemed almost to be fighting back tears.  
  
"I ... looked for you for the longest time, almost until Tida was born." Yuna admitted.  
  
"I never meant to hurt you. I promise."  
  
"I know. It wasn't your fault that you couldn't stay." said Yuna, looking up at him. She moved over and allowed him to sit down next to her. "I always wanted you to see your daughter, you know." she said, chuckling softly.  
  
"She reminds me of you ... a lot." said Tidus.  
  
"I was going to say the same thing, but then, I've seen her play blitzball."  
  
"And I will too. In just a couple of weeks, right?"  
  
"If you are staying ..."  
  
"I want to, Yuna, and I know I can. But ... she is your daughter. I mean, you raised her ... and I wouldn't want to be in the way ... or ... or try to take her away from you."  
  
At this Yuna laughed softly and playfully punched Tidus in the shoulder before she said, "She is our daughter, silly, and I am sure that she wants her father in her life."  
  
"Great." said Tidus, breathing a sigh of relief. "That just leaves one question."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"What about us?"  
  
"It doesn't seem as though it's been eighteen years, does it? To you, I mean?" she questioned after a long pause.  
  
"Not really, but I ..." he started to say.  
  
"Don't, Tidus." she said, cutting him off before he could say anything foolish. "I feel the same way ... but you are still so very young and I am much older now. Don't you realize that Auron and I are about the same age?"  
  
"I don't see that when I look at you."  
  
"But I do."  
  
"Maybe we can work something out?" he questioned, lightly touching her shoulder. Something in his smile pleaded with her. The smile said, "Don't hurt me, Yuna. Don't say that we can't."  
  
"I do not know." she whispered, placing her hand on top of his.  
  
  
Meanwhile, in a few doors down the hall, Auron and Tida were just beginning to settle into their room, oblivious to the drama playing out elsewhere that late afternoon. Tida had been aware for sometime that she was still wearing his glasses. She removed them, wiped the tear-stains from the rims, and set them on the night stand by the bed he had chosen. Auron looked at them for a moment before picking them up and putting them back on.  
  
"Thank you ... for keeping up with them." he said.  
  
"No problem."  
  
For a few moments it was quiet as neither of them could think of anything to say. The battle with Lord Nav and its aftermath had softened the barrier that stood between them and given them a closeness not unlike that of guardian and summoner or comrades-in-arms. But that very closeness rendered them speechless.   
  
"I never asked you ... after the battle ... but are you okay?" he questioned hesitantly, reaching out to lay a hand upon her shoulder, but thinking better of it.  
  
"Of course. I mean, yes, I am, but only because you ... did what you did." she said, hanging her head slightly, and, in Auron's opinion, becoming much more Yuna-like than usual.  
  
"You were brave, foolhardy, certainly, but no less brave than I was when I was your age." said Auron, adding, "Although, I would prefer that you heed my advice in the future."  
  
"Count on it." she nodded. Then Tida lifted her eyes and asked him, "What was it like?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Being in Spira and on the Farplane at the same time, talking with the Fayth?"  
  
"Oh," he said uncomfortably, "that. It was ... very strange."  
  
Auron was about to say more when a commotion from the hall outside interrupted him.  
  
"What in the name of Yevon are you doing with my little girl!?" came the extremely loud and exceptionally angry voice of Wakka. "You get away from her, you son of a shoopuf!"  
  
Tida's eyes widened and both of them sprang toward the door. They opened it just in time to see Pacce, in midst of pulling on a pair of pants, run by with Wakka, continuing to scream mostly incomprehensible insults at him, hot on his heels, followed by Aurie, who was wrapped in a bed sheet.  
  
"Dad!" she yelled after him, sounding mostly put out by the situation.  
  
"I hope that boy has learned how to evade flying objects well." commented Auron with a chuckle.  
  
"Ah ... I wouldn't count on it."  
  
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A/N: Thanks you for reviewing, Lil' Nessie, Trixie, Lynx, and Shido21!   
  
  
  



	22. The last mile

Chapter Twenty-Two  
  
The last mile  
  
  
After all accounts were settled and a few changes were made in the room sharing situation, the night at the Agency was mostly uneventful, which Aurie and Pacce, bruised though he was, found quite unfortunate. No one said anything much about the previous evening's events as they left the next morning, prepared to return to Bevelle. Auron did not explain how he knew or even why there was trouble waiting for them, thinking it best merely to return and face the consequences of his, not to mention Gatta's, actions. Although, to be fair, he did hope that the leaders of Yevon were not too hard on Sir Gatta for helping them to escape Bevelle with the information they needed to find and protect Yuna.  
  
That morning as they tramped through the Thunder Plains, Tidus walked at Auron's side. Something was weighing heavily on the blitzer's mind. That was plain to see. Auron knew that he had had words with Yuna, but he wasn't certain if he wanted to know what kind. It was Tidus who spoke first, though upon another matter that was also close to both of their hearts.  
  
"You've spent a lot of time with Tida." stated Tidus, almost as though it were the beginning of an accusation.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"She looks up to you. I guess, maybe she sees what she always wanted in a father in you."  
  
"I am hardly a father figure to her." disputed Auron, thinking to himself, "At least, that is not what I see in her eyes."  
  
"Well ... maybe not, but when she looks at me, do you think she just sees someone about her own age?"  
  
"I don't think Tida makes that mistake."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yes." he answered.  
  
Tidus did not speak further on the subject, but it was all too obvious that it was still upon his mind even after they entered Macalania and drew near to Bevelle.  
  
  
The road entering Bevelle was lined with soldiers, one upon either side from the very beginning of the Highbridge to its end at the Citadel. With a gesture from Lady Yuna, who led the company upon the last leg of the march, Wakka, Rikku, Lulu, and Pacce, who was sporting a terrific black eye, moved to surround the four who had come from the Farplane and the children. As they did this Tidus glanced back to see the soldiers leaving their positions and following them.  
  
"We won't be going back out that way unless they let us." he thought gloomily.  
  
Auron, whose hand kept straying absently toward the hilt of his blade, did not particularly like Lady Yuna's protective gesture, but it was her call and her world they were entering when they strode into Bevelle, for though she was no longer a maestress of Yevon, she was still very powerful and revered. As he took his eyes from the soldiers, Crusaders to their right and warrior monks to their left, Auron could see a singular, tiny figure at the far end of the bridge. It could not be doubted that it was Maestress Shelinda, waiting to take them into custody and put them to trial. Gatta had been explicit enough when he explained the process. Auron tensed slightly at the thought of another trial before the High Court of Yevon. The prospect was not at all appealing.  
  
Then he felt a hand against the small of his back. He glanced to his side to find Tida walking with him step for step with a fierce look upon her face, outraged, perhaps, on behalf of the noble guardians and the high summoner who were entering the sacred city not as honored guests, but as hardly better than criminals.  
  
"What will happen, Auron?" she questioned in a low voice.  
  
"Nothing." he said confidently. He hesitated a glance at Tidus before putting his arm around her shoulders. "This is ... not important, not dangerous. It is only tiresome and ... a little petty." Auron assured her.  
  
"Then why do you keep reaching for your sword?"  
  
"Old habits die hard."  
  
  
Shelinda did not seem pleased to see them, though she was perhaps relieved to find out that Yuna had returned safely from Guadosalam, which was no small matter to any Yevonite. Tidus read something in her gaze as they stood before her on the Highbridge that was something akin to surprise and an unpleasant sense of duty. The maestress seemed a bit strained too. The task was not an easy one for her. It had not been easy to arrest her husband for his disobedience, and taking such revered figures as these into custody was almost as difficult.  
  
"Sir Gatta said that you would return. I am pleased that you have not betrayed his trust, for it is not given easily nor lightly. Nevertheless, it is my duty to take into custody in the name of Yevon those who have been named under suspicion of being dead and unsent. Shall I read the formal charges?" Shelinda questioned, pulling a scroll from the sleeve of her robe.  
  
"No, that will not be necessary." Lady Yuna answered for them as Auron made a dismissive gesture.  
  
"It is not our wish that any of you be held in the dungeons, though perhaps in this matter we are of little wisdom or foresight ..."  
  
"We will not try to escape." interrupted Auron, understanding quite well what the maestress was driving at.  
  
"Good. Then you will follow me to your quarters. The Maesters of Yevon wish for your trial to be quick, and as painless as possible. It will begin this very evening if that is the wish of the others." she explained, leading them not in the direction of the Citadel, but toward another building wherein important guests were often housed. While hardly a dungeon or a prison, it was quite secure and well guarded both inside and out.  
  
As they followed her, Tidus leaned toward Lulu and asked, "Will there be a Guado among the maesters deciding our fates? 'Cause if so, I don't think it's very fair."  
  
"No, the Guado are no longer so represented. There are only three maesters now: Maestress Shelinda, who replaced after a fashion Maester Kinoc, Maester Argus Ronso, who is still very young - I believe you knew his father Argai -, and Maester Istan, who represents the people of Bevelle and Zanarkand." Lulu informed him, a veritable font of knowledge as always.  
  
"Then the Al-Bhed?"  
  
"Are still not part of Yevon." Lulu concluded for him. "Although ... Istan, who succeeded Yuna, sees that they are left alone and in peace, and for them, that seems to be enough."  
  
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A/N: Thanks for the reviews, Bunny, Trixie27, Grey, Shido21, and double-thanks to sulou!  
  
And I got a great question from Shido21 (who is not at all dense): "What did you mean by Auron being able to talk to the Fayth while he was unsent?" Hmmm ... What I was trying to convey, and I re-wrote that part like 5 times, was that while Auron was beginning to fade after the battle with Nav, the Fayth managed to slip him a message for Tida since he was already part pyreflies/ heading toward the Farplane. (My first idea was that maybe the Fayth could materialize in Guadosalam, and I decided against it for reasons that may become more apparent later.) I may go back and try re-writing that bit again. Anyhow, I also figured that Auron wouldn't have needed a sending (think Tidus's mother in the game) if he had died in the story ... But that is definitely a gray area, I think.  
  
  



	23. The High Court of Yevon

Chapter Twenty-Three  
  
The High Court of Yevon  
  
  
The wait was not long and not entirely unpleasant. Although the four prisoners were separated from their other companions, it did give them time to talk amongst themselves and compare notes regarding their very recent experiences in Spira. Jecht and Auron fumed silently as Braska briefly described his captivity among the Guado to them, but they realized that the matter of the Guado's crimes had already been attended to.  
  
It had scarcely been two hours when the guards came for them and escorted them to the courtroom wherein Yuna had once been called a traitor and the deceased Lord Seymour had nonchalantly admitted to patricide. It was not a room of which any of them had fond memories. Lord Braska had been excommunicated there for marrying an Al-Bhed woman. Auron had been demoted in rank at the behest of a priest who felt slighted when Auron would not marry his daughter. And, of course, none of Yuna's guardians had pleasant memories of time spent there.  
  
"The High Court of Yevon is now in session. The holy offices of this high court seek nothing but absolute truth, in the name of Yevon. To those on trial: Believe in Yevon and speak the truth only." intoned the Ronso maester, who was not nearly so imposing as Maester Kelk Ronso had been, once everyone had taken their places.  
  
"I read now the charges of the court." said Maestress Shelinda, stepping forward and looking down at the four who were accused, "The High Court of Yevon accuses High Summoner Braska, Sir Auron, Sir Jecht, and Sir Tidus of the crime of being dead and/ or unsent and in that state or states attempting to sway the policies and influence the decisions of Yevon and Spira."  
  
"What a mouthful." mumbled Tidus.  
  
"How do you plead?" questioned Argus, who, by virtue of being the Ronso maester, had the right to preside over the court.  
  
"Innocent, my lord." answered Braska.  
  
"And do you speak for the others as well?"  
  
"I do." he said. They had decided beforehand that Braska should speak on their behalf because he was far more eloquent and less likely to lose his temper.  
  
"There is but one way for you to present convincing evidence for your plea. Will you consent to a sending?"  
  
"Yes, my lord, we will consent ... on the provision that this is all that you will ask of us." replied Braska.  
  
As the Ronso considered this, Tidus whispered to Auron, "If we're alive, it won't do anything to us, right?"  
  
"Right." he replied quietly.  
  
"High summoner, I accept your condition." said Argus, turning toward Yuna in the gallery. "Would former Maestress Yuna care to perform this task for us?" he questioned, bowing slightly.  
  
"I ... I would be honored." she said, seeming to steel herself as she spoke. It was not an easy thing that he asked of her.  
  
"Then ... send them."  
  
Everyone cleared a small space for her. Aurie and Pacce clutched one another's hands while Rikku and Wakka were oblivious. Tida shrank back against the wall, too afraid to watch. While Tiron and Lulu stood silently, stoically just out of the way. They seemed to be holding their breaths as Yuna began her dance, no less horrible, no less horrifying, as Tidus had once called it, even when they knew or at least hoped that it would not work.  
  
But there were no tears in her eyes as she performed the slow and somber movements, only calm and resolve. Yuna had performed enough sendings that even this one brought out no discernible emotion. Whatever it was that she felt, it no longer showed upon her face. Not even Lulu could detect any sadness or fear as Yuna conducted the ritual.  
  
On the platform where those accused of crimes against Yevon stood to face judgment, the four stood silent and still as they watched her perform the sending. They felt nothing, except perhaps a faint twinge of relief at feeling that nothing. Tidus, his thoughts wandering for a moment, wondered how it would be to see Yuna dance on a happier occasion, a wedding perhaps. And he felt slightly regretful.  
  
"She would never marry me ... unless I was older." he thought.  
  
Then the dancing stopped and Yuna looked at them and smiled. A couple of whoops, from Rikku and Aurie, went up from the gallery as they realized that nothing had happened, that the test had been passed. The Ronso maester may have glared at them, but he can hardly be blamed for that.  
  
"It seems that I must acquit the accused of all charges. Congratulations, gentlemen, you are indeed alive." Argus said to them. Then he glanced at Shelinda and said quietly, "You may as well release your husband. We have very little with which to fault him now."  
  
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A/N: Thanks for the reviews, waterff, Shido21, Trixie, Lynx, and Tiffany!  
I know this chapter is short and maybe a little boring, but the guys had to clear their names, right?  
  
  
  



	24. The price of love is never too high

Chapter Twenty-Four  
  
The price of love is never too high  
  
  
That night was spent in celebration as those of them who had been alive the week before welcomed the return of those they had lost so many long years ago. It was a party to remember and lasted long into the night. Few could recall when they had better cause for celebrating.   
  
But it seemed to Tidus as though there was still something to be done, that some heavy burden was still upon his shoulders. He watched Auron and his daughter. They were inseparable, almost as much so as Pacce and Aurie had become, at least when Wakka wasn't looking. Tidus finally realized that Tida did not see a father in Auron, far from it. She liked him very much or possibly even loved him, though she hid it well. He was not even certain that Auron himself saw the way she looked at him. Even as they danced together, and how Tida had managed to perform the feat of persuading Auron to dance was beyond comprehension, she remained just as reserved as the elder guardian while they swayed to the music provided by the strange Al-Bhed contraption in the corner.  
  
Tidus sighed quietly, wistfully as he looked at Yuna, who continued to keep her distance. If only he could be dancing with her ... Love was never simple, never easy. When life, death, and all the ages of the world seemed to separate them, Tidus had never doubted that someday they would be together again and happy, but as she stood there across the room, speaking to Lulu in hushed tones or laughing quietly with her father, doubt did touch his heart. Was it really supposed it be this way?  
  
And so, in midst of the merrymaking, sometime long after midnight but well before the coming dawn, Tidus slipped out of the hall where the joyous homecoming was being held and made his way through the dark and deserted streets of Bevelle to visit the temple once more.  
  
  
The temple was very dim and shadowy inside, lit only a pair of lanterns burning near the door of the chamber of the Fayth, far to the rear of the structure. An elderly priest was dozing at the door, keeping the night watch over one of the sacred spaces of Yevon. Tidus held his breath as he tiptoed past the guard and entered the room. The noise of the door alone should have awakened the priest, but perhaps that night his sleep was a charmed one.  
  
Tidus was left in a pitch black chamber as the door closed with a grinding noise. He stumbled forward, closer to the lifeless statue, and looked around. The room felt empty. It was like the tomb of someone long forgotten.  
  
"Bahamut? Um, boy in the purple robe?" Tidus called out in a loud whisper, looking upward toward the dome of the temple, though his eyes could not pierce the darkness. "I'm sorry I don't know your name, but I really need to talk to you. I need a favor." he said, hoping the Fayth could hear him.  
  
"You did not have to come here. I am always with you, in spirit at least." said the voice a small and serious boy.  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Of course. We all are." the boy Fayth replied.  
  
Tidus had the sense of a presence in the inky blackness around him. Or more accurately, the feeling of many powerful and benevolent presences that he could only identify as the Fayth. It was a warm, wholesome feeling that filled the chamber completely.  
  
"I know you don't owe me anything. I mean, I have so much already ..."  
  
The boy chuckled and said, "Ask us, Tidus, and we will hear your request."  
  
"I love Yuna." he prefaced.  
  
"This we all know, and we honor your love of the lady summoner."  
  
"But ... she no longer loves me."  
  
"This we don't believe." There was kindly humor and patience in the voice that spoke, and Tidus was grateful for those confidently spoken words.  
  
"You see ... Time sort of left me behind. She grew ... and changed ... and I ... haven't." he explained awkwardly.  
  
"You changed more than you will ever know."  
  
"Thanks, but I want to change in other ways. I want to know if you could make me older, old enough for Yuna and me to be ... together, like before." he asked hesitantly.  
  
"Hmmm ... This is serious request. You wish to give up years of your life ... to be with the one you love."  
  
"Can you do it?"  
  
"It is within our power."  
  
"Would you?" asked Tidus. Then he had another thought, one that made him smile despite the seriousness of the situation. "Wait, could I maybe give those years away? To make someone else younger, I mean."  
  
"To whom would you give these years?"  
  
"Auron."  
  
"Ah ... I see."  
  
"Is it possible to do all of this?"  
  
"It is." replied the Fayth in a low voice. "But we would not so alter the life of anyone living without his consent."  
  
Suddenly Tidus realized that he could hear someone outside the chamber, someone who refused to sneak inside like a thief, someone talking with the guard in firm, but hushed tones. His heart began to pound as he recognized the voice as Auron's.  
  
The door slowly opened and light seemed to pour into the darkness of the chamber, falling upon the form of the Fayth with whom Tidus had been speaking. Tidus turned and saw the legendary guardian standing in the open door.  
  
"I have come." he said, speaking to the Fayth.  
  
"Then you agree to what was proposed?" asked the boy.  
  
"Wait a minute!" interrupted Tidus, turning again to the Fayth. "You knew?"  
  
"I know many things, son of Jecht." the Fayth acknowledged. "Are you in agreement with these proceedings?" he questioned Auron, who had chosen to stand at Tidus's side before the Fayth.  
  
Auron looked at Tidus uncomfortably, having the uncanny feeling that Tidus knew that his daughter was much of the reason he was there, and answered simply, "Yes."  
  
The door closed behind them, enveloping them in darkness, as the Fayth intoned, "So be it."  
  
  
Morning light was shining in through the dome when Tidus opened his eyes and sat up, momentarily wondering why he had chosen to sleep in such an uncomfortable place. Then he remembered where he was, the Chamber of the Fayth in the temple of Yevon in Bevelle, and what had happened, or what he had asked the Fayth that he thought of as Bahamut to make happen. He instantly looked at his hands. He wasn't sure if they looked any older or not. He wanted to ask someone. Then he remembered Auron.  
  
The guardian was lying next to him on the cold stone of the temple. Tidus grinned as he looked at sleeping Auron. The gray hair was gone, returned to a healthy and youthful mahogany brown. The muscles of his uncovered, bare arm seemed leaner. And most telling of all, the hard-bitten look upon his face had softened. Tidus took a second look at his face and realized, much to his amazement, that the scar was gone as well.  
  
Tidus nudged him, and Auron sat up and stretched, stopping mid motion as he realized that he actually felt so much younger than before. A smile twitched across Auron's lips as he flexed his arms experimentally and beheld the changes. The his head snapped back and he began looking around at everything, whipping off his glasses as he did so.  
  
"I can see!" he said with some incredulity.  
  
"Hey, it's not like you were blind or anything." said Tidus, chuckling with amusement at 'young' Auron's antics.  
  
Auron turned toward Tidus and the happy look on his face diminished. For a moment Tidus thought there were tears in his eyes.  
  
"You gave up so much." said Auron quietly.  
  
"Really? Did I? I gave up years that I would have spent alone, an outsider in my own family, in exchange for years that I can spend with the woman I love. Did I give up, did I lose anything, Auron?"  
  
"Maybe not." the somber young man admitted.  
  
"You did this ... for Tida, didn't you?"  
  
"I ... You knew that ..."  
  
"She loves you." Tidus finished for him, smiling at the confused look on Auron's face. "Yeah, kind of obvious, at least to me." he shrugged. "Although ... I wasn't sure how you felt ... until now."  
  
"Strange. I wasn't sure about her." said Auron.  
  
"Yeah, well, Pacce learned a hard lesson from Wakka ... Don't let me catch you making the same mistake." Tidus threatened.  
  
"She is eighteen." Auron pointed out. "She is a grown woman."  
  
"Whoa! Not by the standards of ancient Zanarkand, where her father happened to grow up, in case you forget."  
  
"In Spira ... where she grew up ... coming of age has been seventeen for a long time." Auron argued.  
  
"Don't make me come over there!" Tidus warned.  
  
"And don't make me laugh, old man." Auron joked in reply.  
  
"You know, I don't care what my father says, I kind of_ like_ the sound of that." laughed Tidus, standing and stretching.  
  
Auron clambered to his feet and they looked at each other for a moment before both burst out laughing.  
  
"I can't wait to see their faces." said Auron.  
  
"Me too."  
  
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A/N: Thank you for reviewing, Firefly, Trixie27, sulou, Bunny, Lynx, and double-thanks to klepto-maniac0!  
Klepto-maniac0 has posed the question, "Interesting--they're all alive. But why? Surely unsent people would be just as able to do things that living people are able to do...perhaps more". Recall from the game that the unsent were seen as enemies (and eventually became fiends or fiend-like). To be unsent was seen as a violation of traditional Yevonite mores, which probably would not have changed that drastically in only eighteen years. Those who were unsent didn't exactly broadcast that fact (Auron and Maester Mika, for instance). So ... if the guys had remained as simple unsents, they would have been shunned or even hated by Yevonite society and may have grown fiend-like themselves (Seymour and the first summoner Lulu guarded). It might have made for an interesting plot twist, but it wasn't the direction I wanted to go with this story.  
Firefly (whose high praise truly made me blush - thanks!) asked a related question: "Everyone found out how corrupt Yevon was in the game, right? But, in this story, Yevon is the main religion. I understand that the teachings have been altered drastically, but still . . ." Well ... it's really hard to replace an established fictional religion, especially since it wasn't all bad, even if it was corrupt. Yevon appeared to have functioned, if not always well, for about a thousand years. And I think that if Yevon was done away with at the end of the game, the result would have been social upheaval and war (think about the Protestant-Catholic wars in Europe hundreds of years ago). This may have presented a more interesting backdrop for the story, but I didn't think of it.  
  
  
  
  
  



	25. The temple gates at dawn

Chapter Twenty-Five  
  
The temple gates at dawn  
  
  
Little did the two transfigured men know that their friends, after noting and discussing their disappearance from the party, first Tidus and then a short time later Auron, they sent the 'children' to bed, much to their annoyance, and began to search high and low through Bevelle for them. Tidus had slipped out unnoticed during a very heartfelt, but unreasonably long toast from Wakka, who had become very verbose in his middle years, so much so that Rikku believed that he should seek political office. Then Auron, who had been lingering in a corner for some time, had the feeling that he too should leave, that it was, indeed, time for him to leave as per his instructions from the Fayth, which he had taken great pains to remember. His escape from the celebration was helped along greatly by a bit of impromptu and unaccompanied singing which Jecht had begun after having about five of whatever Pacce was drinking in a more moderate fashion.  
  
They found the streets and alleys of Bevelle to be quite empty that night, except for the occasional sentry outside some great house or important building dedicated to Yevon or the Crusaders or perhaps both. But for all of their scouring, they could not manage to locate the two missing former guardians. This worried Yuna quite a bit, despite the failed sending and even though Bevelle was the safest city in all of Spira.  
  
It was quite fair to say that Tiron, Tida, and Aurie had been sent to bed, grudgingly, in the wee hours of the morning, but they had not stayed there. They were, after all, young and very adventurous. And more to the point, Tida had the distinct feeling that her father had returned to the temple and that Auron had dutifully followed. It was almost light when they sneaked from their room in the guest quarters and wound their way through the streets, carefully avoiding their parents, and found their way to the vicinity of the temple.  
  
The trio, feeling chilly and quite smug, was about to enter the building when they heard a firm and all too familiar voice call from behind them, "Stop right there!"  
  
It was, of course, Lulu, who had the keenest parental instincts, though certainly not the most practice in tailing would-be runaways. That honor went to Wakka who had logged in weeks in his relentless quest to raise Aurie, not to mention Chappu, in the rather rigid Yevonite fashion.  
  
They stopped dead in their tracks and sheepishly turned to face the music, that is to say, their parents, grandparents, and Pacce, who seemed a great deal less unhappy in finding them out and about at indecent hours than the rest.  
  
Tida plucked up her courage and stepped forward to explain, "We were only trying to help. Tidus came here last time we were in Bevelle. I wasn't sure if you'd think to check here."  
  
She was mostly correct in her assumption as they would not have checked the temple grounds if Lulu had not spotted them sneaking down an alleyway and followed them there.  
  
"I see." said the black mage, waiting for Yuna, not to mention Wakka and Rikku, to chime in.  
  
It can be imagined that Lulu was going to lecture them, despite the fact that more than one of them had technically come of age, when the door of the temple behind them swung open. Tida felt a twinge of satisfaction when they all gasped and stared. She had been right, it seemed. Even drunken Jecht seemed to sober at the sight behind them. Then she realized that their surprise was perhaps a bit exaggerated. Tida turned to find out why they were staring and found herself quite literally face to face with the man of her dreams, or one of them actually.  
  
The moment was one that Auron had been waiting for since he awakened that morning and found himself changed. Tida looked more surprised than he had anticipated. He put his gloved hand upon her shoulder. She just stared at him with an open mouth. Recognition flickered across her eyes. For the briefest instant she had not known him. Even when she realized that he was Auron, young Sir Auron who had been the best of guardians to Lord Braska, she could not find words with which to greet him. She was too amazed, too stunned by the transformation.  
  
To Auron that moment was a test, a test to see whether or not she would accept him and whether or not the gift Tidus had given him had been given in vain. His heart was in midst of sinking as she hesitated, or so it seemed to him as she stood there for a moment simply staring at him. Then, rather unexpectedly, Tida smiled and threw her arms around him. He enfolded her in his arms, breathing a sigh of relief into her hair. Words were not necessary. He hesitated a glance at her father, but Tidus was too otherwise engaged to notice.  
  
Tidus's eyes saw nothing, and no one else, but Yuna as he walked out of the temple. She stepped toward him, fascinated with the change that had come over the formerly seventeen-year-old blitzer. He was a few inches taller and a bit more muscular. He had matured over night into a man who was at least thirty years old. His eyes had tiny, barely noticeable crow's feet beside them, and his blond hair had faded just a bit, but nothing had been lost or taken away from that which she loved and had loved about him all those years ago. He smiled what seemed to be a sadder, more worldly, more hesitant smile as the two of them met half way between the temple and the crowd.  
  
"Did I do the right thing, Yuna? Can you and I ...? Can we grow old together now?" he questioned her.  
  
Her eyes filled with tears as she nodded, robbed of the words to say to him. Then he leaned down and kissed her just as passionately and as gently as he had kissed her that night at the lake so many years earlier, and when Yuna kissed him back with her eyes closed, he knew that his choices had been the right ones.  
  
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A/N: Thanks for the reviews, Trixie27, Bunny, Shido21, waterff, and Firefly!  
Wow, this might be a good opportunity to admit that I've never watched any anime ... and that I don't know anything much about samuris. But thanks for the info, Shido21 and Trixie27. I will look into fixing the inconsistency/ inaccuracy as soon as possible. Although, for what it's worth, I always figured he had had his arm mangled in the one-on-one with Lady Yunalesca ... and that that was why his armor was a bracer (because he needed it for the arm).  
To answer Firefly's question about the international version of the game: No, I haven't seen that version, but I have heard that the ending is longer/ better.  
Shido21 also has a question: "what are Auron's feelings for Tida in this section? Did he agree to this because he loves her or just to give her a chance?" I guess it was a little of both. I tried to set the stage a tiny bit in chapter 3 with the touch of Aurikku and the regret that went with it. (Just for the record, I do believe in love at first sight, even though it's never happened to me.)  
Trixie27 asked, "Anyways, whyyyy did you make him lose the sunglasses?!" I didn't realize anyone had an affinity so great toward the glasses. Well ... and I wore glasses for years and hated them (with an all-consuming passion). I thought I was doing him a favor 'cause of his eye and all ... But, hey, if he isn't wearing them more, I guess you can have them. wink  
  
  
  



	26. Epilogue: The part about happy endings

Chapter Twenty-Six  
  
Epilogue: The part about happy endings  
  
~  
  
  
Tidus and Auron leaned on the railing together, watching the sphere pool being filled and enjoying the ocean breeze in their hair. They glanced up at Tida and Yuna as the two women took their seats in the stands nearby. Yuna was cradling a small blond infant in her arms, a gift and joy to her and her husband in the very beginning of their middle age. Tidus was going to have the opportunity to raise a child, a son, after all. Tida seemed rather awkward, but happy as she slid into the seat next to Yuna. She was very obviously pregnant.  
  
Aurie and Pacce, newly married, were seated with Rikku and an empty seat reserved for Wakka. Aurie, who had taken a respite from the team to help Tida out and start her life with Pacce, looked blissfully happy, but her husband seemed a bit beleaguered. She set a face pace and was not easy to keep up with. If Pacce could have remembered what Rikku was like at her age, maybe it would have made him feel better. The Al-Bhed woman, much beloved and soon to take Cid's place in leading her people, was energetic even at her age, but the passage of time had slowed her down. She seemed to be dozing slightly as she waited for the game to begin.  
  
Tiron was in Zanarkand for the week, playing three straight exhibition games after losing during the first tournament round for the fifth straight year, but his parents were in the stands. Lulu in her somber black dress always looked out of place in the stadium, even, if not especially, when she cheered on the Aurochs or the Abes. She loved the home team, but her son played for the Abes and she couldn't let him down. But his contract would be up soon and the Aurochs wanted him back. Maroda at her side, the ever adoring husband, had wanted to go to the Zanarkand stadium to see Tiron play, but the boy had insisted that both of them see the game in Luca. It was a special game, after all.  
  
Lord Braska and Jecht, seated in the row just behind Yuna and Tida, couldn't help but to lean down and make silly baby noises at their little grandson, who was for reasons unknown terrified of the rough voiced and tattooed guardian. The only thing that could distract or appease him was the headpiece of Braska's robe, at which his tiny fists would grab whenever Braska leaned too close. Needless to say, the two men were frightfully irritating to Yuna and Tida knew quite well what lay in store her child and herself once it was born. But, she hoped, at least she would have Auron to fend them off, unless, of course, he was the same as his two friends.  
  
From below, Auron and Tidus were watching it all, one seemingly contented and the other brooding ever-so-slightly.  
  
"I know you want your son to learn the game, but is it wise to bring a screaming infant to a blitzball game?" Auron questioned his friend quietly.  
  
"Dad brought me to my first game on the day I was born." Tidus reminded him.  
  
"Then Yevon be praised that Bahamut was born during the off-season." said Auron, referring to Tidus's son, named after the Fayth that had given them both a second chance.  
  
"And Tida?"  
  
"It was a compromise. She wanted to play. I convinced her just to spectate, at least for a while." shrugged Auron, not that Tida had needed much convincing. "She would never miss one of your team's games." he added. The Djose Shrooms had replaced the Guado Glories, which had lost almost all of its players during a certain unfortunate incident two years before.  
  
"I know." chuckled Tidus, beaming at both of his children. "You know," he began to say as he looked at all of their friends, their comrades, their family in the bleachers, "I have always wondered why everyone began marrying and settling down willy-nilly after we left." Like Sir Gatta, Tidus was turning into a man of deep thoughts.  
  
"We had never had the chance before. Life was a struggle. Love was rare. People married only for practical reasons and often cursed the life they left to their children." Auron answered, as serious as ever before.  
  
"Wow. You really know how to bring someone down." said Tidus.  
  
"A leopard cannot change his spots."  
  
"Do you think people would call ..." he began to ask before a familiar voice interrupted.  
  
It was Wakka in his favorite 'Save the Shoopuf' T-shirt, who, like Tidus, had come up from the locker room to be with everyone else while the Aurochs took on the newcomers in the Shrooms' first Yevon Cup match.  
  
"You guys going to stand around all day?" he asked, grabbing them both by the shoulders. "Why so serious? It's game day!"  
  
"I was just asking Auron if he thought this was what people meant when at the end of a story it says, 'And they all lived happily ever after.'" said Tidus.  
  
Wakka frowned and told them, "Well, you know, whatever they say, I guess we made our own happily-ever-after here, right, bruddas?" "Now let's enjoy the game!"  
  
  
The End  
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A/N: Thanks for reviewing, Lynx, Bunny, and Shido21!  
Shido21 asked a couple of good questions: "Are you going to keep him [Auron] 35 inside?" "are you going to keep the personality of the 35 year old Auron or are you going to revert him back to 25 year old Auron or will there be a gradual change?" Well, I hope the answer to those questions are found somewhere in the chapter above.   
I know this is probably not exactly how everyone wanted it to end ... But this where I envisioned the story ending a long time ago, like when I started writing it.  
  
  
  
  



End file.
